Bad Blood
by nnefertari
Summary: A new house, a new brother - as if that wasn't enough for one summer, Thor finds himself experiencing inexplicable phenomena and is left to determine their source. Natural or supernatural? Will his entire worldview be shaken beyond repair? And what exactly is Loki's role in all this? Thor/Loki human AU, ghost story/horror.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello everybody, here I come with this human Thor/Loki AU. It's already finished and I will be posting chapters swiftly, so enjoy.

Chapters: 6 + epilogue

Rating: M (warning perhaps for vaguely aged teenagers fooling around and of course pseudo-incest.)

Wordcount: 28,5k

Genre: human AU, horror, paranormal, occasional fluff and crack thrown in

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><p><em>A figure glided silently through the darkened halls, never stopping, roaming without a purpose. The house was quiet and motionless, the few sleeping inhabitants lost to the world, unaware of the presence that slipped through the air. Not even the sharpest instinct would be roused. The figure was moving slowly, softly, free of urgency or desire. It held little memory in its heart and peace was almost at its grasp. Soon. It would happen soon.<em>

* * *

><p>Thor was really trying to act maturely, but at the sight of countryside passing by in a wet, grey smudge, he couldn't suppress his anger. Heavy rain was falling, trickling down the car window and he curled towards it to watch the drops, turning his back on the rest of the limo.<p>

His father gave up on talking to him a while ago.

It's not like there was anything new to say.

On some level, Thor understands. He knows that life doesn't end after 30. He knows that everyone needs connection and love. He knows that his father deserves to be happy, deserves to have something else in his life than work and a son that is all but ready to fly from the nest and be on his own. But knowing all this doesn't make it easier to swallow. Thor misses his mother greatly, even if he was very young when she died, and he cannot imagine another woman taking her place. He has to try and think about his father as a man, not just... well, _his father_.

But knowing all this couldn't erase the fact that Thor's life was changing in ways in found hard to swallow. Apparently, he was acquiring a brother. It seemed fine at first. So Laufey had a son his age. This didn't bother Thor, as they wouldn't even be living together. Odin owned a house and an apartment in London and Thor had been more or less living in the latter on his own for the past year, not counting some weekends and holidays, as it was much closer to downtown and his school. Laufey and her son would move into the house and Thor didn't need to be there more often than he ever was.

This arrangement would however only come to be in September. And now, at the end of June, he was being dropped of at a country house near Keswick, the preferred summer home of his new step-mother and step-brother.

Odin and Laufey would then leave for nine entire weeks of honeymoon, leaving their offspring to their own devices. In the middle of nowhere. In an old, huge, stupid _mansion _that was two hours away from any resemblance of civilization.

Thor had exploded when his father first told him of this plan.

"You can't be serious! I am seventeen! I can be alone just fine!"

"That doesn't mean you should be," Odin explained patiently.

"So what, you want to drag me away from my life here, from my friends? For what? Some brat that I am now supposed to call brother?"

"Loki lives at the Grey Rose Cottage for most of the year and if another boy of your age can survive it there, so can you. Laufey and I really want to go on this trip but... what you must understand, Thor, is that... I am trying to build a family here. We cannot just be strangers who share a name."

It didn't stop Thor's protests, but it took away some of the fire and soon he was beaten.

The last part of the ride was aggravating. The limo was moving painfully slowly on the narrow roads once they left the main communications and got closer on their destination.

"We could have been there already if we took the BMW. Who are you trying to impress?" Thor broke the silence and grumbled as they moved at a snail pace through a particularly curving section of a road. The vegetation around was thick and gloomy.

"It was a six hour ride. Forgive me if I wish to stretch my legs and get away from your constant pouting."

Thor ignored that and pouted some more, mapping the drenched forest ground with his eyes.

After a particularly sharp turn, Thor was jerked from his musings by his first view of the infamous Grey Rose Cottage. An alley of tall trees guarded a long, perfectly straight roadway of white pebbles, ending in a small half circle in front of the main entrance. Where the road was clean cut and modernly elegant, the house itself was massive and imposing. It was not hard to guess the origins of its name. It was made of grey stone and there were prominent rose emblems.

"The original house was built during the reign of Henry VIII," noted Odin in his lecture voice. "But otherwise it's mostly Edwardian."

Thor nodded, speechless. He supposed it wasn't really too different from what he was led to expect, but seeing the house for the first time, it fully fell on him that he was about to spend the next two months here. In a house that scared him on first sight.

There was really no other word for it even if Thor would rather bite off his tongue than to admit it. The house was like a dark cloud – the woods surrounding it, even the premises were all bright, green, reflecting the grey light of an overcast day, but the house itself was like a wormhole, swallowing all light, standing proud and tall and menacing. It had a wide front and two wings that went out back. It seemed that there were at least three stories and a little attic or almost a tower on the left side, throwing the symmetry off.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Sure. I wonder when do we get to meet the ghost of Jane Austen."

Thor was spared his father's answer by John, their driver, opening the door. He held out an umbrella for his father and Thor scrambled after them, trying not to get too wet. Rushing from the rain, he almost missed the experience of passing huge gargoyles that guarded the flight of stairs leading to the main entrance. At the last moment, he glanced to the side and his stomach fell as he felt like the stone eyes were following him.

He was being ridiculous.

Their arrival was noted and the door opened before John could reach the bell. They were ushered inside by a small, smiling white-haired woman in an actual _staff uniform. _Thor liked her immediately, but had to resist rolling his eyes at the pomp. They passed through the hall, a slightly dim room laid in with wood and several coats of arms hanging on the walls. Laufey was waiting for them in what the butler called a drawing room. More creepiness.

Thor had met Laufey before. She was a beautiful woman in her fifties, with dark her cut into a perfect mikado, slender and petite. Today she was wearing an elegant suit with pants and high heels that added to her height and allowed her to reach Odin more easily as she kissed his cheek.

"Darling, I'm so glad you are finally here. How was the journey?"

"It was just fine, dear."

Despite obviously setting the rules for the house, Laufey herself was acting with genuine, warm interest, not stuffy etiquette and Thor wondered why she even bothered with keeping the house as it was in the first place.

"And you have met Julia, of course," Laufey gestured to the closed doors leading from the hall where they left the butler. "Thor, I hope you will get along with her. I'm sure she will do everything to help you with your stay here, but what can I say... the woman rules with a steel hand."

"She seemed very nice," Thor replied politely and Laufey beamed at him. He didn't know what was Laufey's true opinion of him and he was still forming his final judgement of her.

Julia came with a tray of tea a few minutes later and they sat down. Thor was just reaching for a rather delicious looking butter biscuit when the door opened once more and a boy strolled in.

Loki looked quite a lot like his mother, although he was tall as well as thin. Mop of black hair was falling into his eyes and going past his collar in the back. As if his skin wasn't pale enough, he set it off with a plain black t-shirt.

"Oh there you are, dear," smiled Laufey and Odin got up, shaking Loki's hand. Thor couldn't help but be impressed with the stony, challenging look that Loki gave his father. Not many people could do that. Odin and Loki had met before, so all that was left was the introduction of the two of them.

He got up and Odin clasped him over the shoulders, a gesture he hardly ever used. "Loki, I would like you to meet my son, Thor."

It appeared that Thor didn't merit the force of Loki's glare as the other boy simply said _hello_ in a pleasant enough tone and then they were done, sitting back down to finish tea.

Odin and Laufey were going to leave the next day and board a plane to Maui, where they would get married in a simple ceremony on the beach, just the two of them and the necessary witnesses. When Thor first heard that plan, he gaped openly, wondering what kind of woman Laufey could possibly be to convince his father to do something like that. Seeing the house they were in, dark and stuffy and filled with the burden of centuries of history, he could understand a little better. Everybody would long for a change from that.

The tea wasn't exactly a torturous experience, but it wasn't Thor's idea of fun either and he was rather glad when it was over. A small tour of the house was coming up next and he was both eager to learn what to expect and strangely reluctant. The entire house seemed to be perpetrated by soft odours – wood, old fur, paint, dried flowers and it made for a curious mixture that would take some getting used to.

He was handed over to the care of Loki and Julia and they left Odin and Laufey behind in a soft, but excited conversation and Thor was once again reminded of just how much this marriage meant to his father.

The house was a never-ending maze of private rooms and drawing rooms and there seemed to be a direct correlation between story number and creepiness of its halls. They started out at the ground floor and there was a kitchen, tucked away in the far side and perfectly modern, except for several antique cupboards, left there probably to fit in better with the rest of the house. The dining room was impressive, with high ceiling, and as wide as the entire wing, with a long table that could host at least thirty people and with beautiful tall windows that faced a tidy garden on one side and a hilly field slowly turning into the woods that surrounded the entire place on the other. When Loki announced that next was the ball room, Thor had to bite his tongue to keep a snort in. Odin had said that Loki was "surviving" his stay at the Cottage, but from what Thor saw so far, Loki loved the house and despite being generally good in nature, Thor couldn't stop a small part of him from judging that and feeling slightly suspicious of what his new brother's temper might be. When Thor said he liked the city, he didn't do so with the allure of the concrete jungle on his mind or even the comfort of urban civilization (though that played a part as well), he meant the people and the possibilities. Thor was almost never alone and he liked it that way. His friends from school, from his swimming team, children of his father's acquaintances that he was always required to meet and sometimes even miraculously befriended were a constant presence in his life, someone to share interests with, to laugh with. And so he couldn't imagine why anyone would exchange all that for living in a house that was, figuratively speaking, filled with nothing but ghosts.

Thor was deep in thought as they ascended the first flight of stairs, reaching the second floor. The hall was almost narrow considering the other proportions of the house, carpeted in deep burgundy and it spread out into both directions with lines of identical doors. The smell of wood and fur was stronger here.

Loki smirked at him. "I would suggest counting off the doors until you get to the right one. You don't want to get lost here. One of the bedrooms is haunted."

"Oh shush," Julia scolded him. "Don't listen to him, mister Thor, it's just child stories."

"I don't doubt it," laughed Thor, but it came out a little awkwardly and he could swear he saw Loki's eyes flash in victory. He was seriously considering not liking the boy.

"Here, this is the bedroom we have prepared for you."

She led them through the hall to the left side, taking a turn when the wing started. Thor's room was almost at the end.

"Well, that's easy. Too bad that the haunted bedroom is the last one, there." Loki pointed to the only door left between Thor's new bedroom and the window at the end of the hall.

Julia sighed loudly, appearing quite cross.

"That's just a door leading to your washing room. It's usually locked as you have your own entrance."

He had the feeling that Loki meant to add something else to that, but he was cut short by Julia's warning look and so he just smiled widely and waited as Thor took a peek into his room before they could continue. After seeing the modern kitchen, a hope bloomed in Thor that more of the rooms hid completely renovated interiors behind their old doors but that hope was cut short after the first look into his new bedroom. It was covered in carpets (_tapestries, _he told himself) from floor to ceiling, alternating between hues of dark blue, aquamarine green and pale gold. The furniture was all from dark, heavily carved wood. There was desk, a commode, a window seat with something akin to a coffee table and a bed with actual canopies.

The rest of the tour was a blur of stairs, locked doors, antiquities, local trivia and eventually, as they got to the last floor, a lot of dust. Julia made an apologetic face at him when he sneezed as the three of them looked out of a window, with panels of glass so small and thin they must have been there for centuries.

"It's a big house and we can only take care of the living quarters... we clean the rest twice a year, but still..." she sighed. "It's a shame it's in such a bad shape."

The view was impressive. The rain made the visibility bad, but they were pretty high up and Thor looked over the deep green hills, beautiful garden (the main one, apparently) with a little pond and told himself that he could understand the appeal. Perhaps in time he would grow to feel it too.

* * *

><p>Dinner was early as Odin and Laufey would be leaving very soon the next morning. Thor walked down from his room feeling a little confused until he heard footsteps and turned around. Loki was bouncing down the stairs, coming from the other wing of Thor's floor. He was wearing a dark suit pants and a white shirt, rolled to his elbows. He was even wearing dress shoes. Thor stared at him in disbelief. He himself was in old jeans and a t-shirt.<p>

"Is this what you do here all the time? Play dress up?" he winced the moment the words left his lips. He shouldn't be starting unnecessary trouble. But Loki just laughed, stepping from the steps and reaching Thor, gesturing in the right direction.

"Just wait for the looks Julia and Stuart will give you."

"Who's Stuart?" Thor asked, hurrying after Loki.

"Our ghost," Loki answered nonchalantly and Thor looked at him sharply. Loki's face was blank, turning to look at Thor with an expression of polite interest.

"Funny," murmured Thor.

It turned out Stuart was Julia's son-in-law. Her daughter, Molly, was the cook here and her husband took care of the property.

"So, Thor," Laufey turned to him between bites of stuffed chicken. "I hear your swimming team was doing well last year."

"Yes, it was. We've managed to score some great times and won quite a lot."

"That's great to hear. Anyway, there is a lake nearby. It's small but very clean and easy to get into when you know where to look. You might consider training there a bit. Loki can take you, he knows the way well."

And with that, she turned a sharp look to her son who reached for a glass and took a long drink of his juice before responding.

"Of course. Should be fun."

Laufey's sharp gaze left Loki and moved onto Thor. He gulped.

"That would be amazing, yeah."

Satisfied, Laufey turned to Odin again and they started speaking about some mutual friend of theirs, leaving Thor and Loki to focus on their meals. Halfway through the dessert, Thor caught Loki smirking at him.

"What?" he asked quietly. Loki shrugged, popping a last bit of cake into his mouth.

"Nothing. It's full moon. I hope you enjoy your first night here."

* * *

><p>It wasn't even true. Thor stood by the window in his room, looking out at the slim silver sickle on the sky, occasionally losing sights of it when the clouds, a remainder of that day's rain, covered it. With a sigh, he shook his head, feeling annoyed and oddly disappointed and climbed into bed, reaching to click off the old bedside light. The room went completely dark except for the eerie cold light from the moon and stars, but even that was very weak. Definitely not the orange glow of street lamps he was used to.<p>

Hours later, his eyes snapped open into the same darkness, his heart pounding. His mind was blank of all thoughts, but his body was betraying his fear. Something startled him in his sleep. He laid there on his back, breathing and listening intently. For minutes, there was nothing, only maybe the tiniest creak of plumbing and a hoot of an owl, far in the distance. Then his heartbeat was settled, the uncomfortable twitching of blood in his veins gone as well and he closed his eyes, ready to forget this and sleep.

_Whoosh._

It sounded almost like a car passing by rapidly, or perhaps a fan turned on and off. Thor sat up, staring. The sound was coming from the hall. Seconds tickled by, counted by his heartbeat.

_Whoosh._

The same sound, louder than before. Thor swallowed, feeling blindly for the light to his right. He reached it just in time to see the doors to his room literally rattle in their hinges, followed by the sound of rushing air again.

He spent the next ten minutes sitting on the bed, staring at the old wallpaper, now safely illuminated by his lamp and contemplating what the hell had just happened. Loki's smirks and comments kept making their way to the front of his mind even as he fought against them.

"It was a draft," he murmured to himself finally. "Crazy old house."

Feeling as if he had something to prove, he got up, not entirely happy to leave the bed and grabbed the doorknob, determined to check the hallway and confirm that nothing was there.

The door was locked.

At first, he just frowned and tried pulling instead of pushing. It didn't help. Then he pressed the knob more forcefully, wiggling it in all directions. It didn't give in either.

He was never going to admit to this, but when yet another _whoosh _passed through the hall, sounding as if something rapidly moving was only inches away from his face, he jumped back and fell right on his ass, scrambling away until he was on the bed again.

He wasn't sure how long was he awake and when exhaustion won over fear, but he woke up to weak sunshine tickling his nose and he sat up hurriedly, looking around his room. Everything looked perfectly innocent in the light of the day and he quickly strode to the door, trying the knob again. It gave in without a glitch. He was about to crouch down and examine the lock mechanism for any rational explanation when Loki appeared on the hallway, crunching an apple. Thor straightened hastily and cleared his throat.

"Morning," said Loki in between bites.

"Good morning."

"Looking for something?"

"Not really. I just woke."

"I can see that."

Thor realized he was only in his pyjama bottoms, hair sticking in all directions.

"Uhm, is my father... I mean, are they gone?"

"Yeah," Loki nodded. "They left at six sharp."

"Okay... and now it's...?" he trailed off.

"Almost eleven. And I'm pretty sure you have a clock in your room. And I'm pretty sure Julia will kill you for sleeping that late. She prepared breakfast, you know. But don't worry, I tried to help you out and ate it all so she wouldn't be too cross. See you around."

With this speech, Loki turned on his heel with a smirk and strolled away, leaving Thor standing there with an expression of disbelief. What a little snake. Couldn't he at least try to be nice?

With way too much on his mind, Thor washed up and dressed quickly, deciding that getting out of his room and possibly from the house was essential for his mental health. He was surprised to find that Julia was in fact nowhere to be found. When he went into the kitchen, he met the cook, Molly, who smiled at him and told him that she would be cooking dinners for him and Loki six days in a week and the rest of the time, he was free to eat or cook anything he wanted, unless she was there and would rather make him something herself. A local radio was playing happy tunes in the corner and Thor's ideas of pseudo-royal treatment were disappearing, to his immense relief. It also seemed he would be wise to refrain from listening to Loki again.

_He might have been right about the ghost, though_, an annoying voice in his head reminded him.

* * *

><p>Two days later, he still didn't know what occupied his step-brother's (now officially – Odin and Laufey had sent him a photo of themselves smiling and waving from the beach ceremony) time. They barely saw each other and Thor didn't really mind, making the most of a nice weather and spending long hours at a nice garden sitting, with comfortable chairs and an apple tree providing shade in the rare moments of sunlight. He made a considerable dent in the books he brought with (he probably read more in those two days than in the last six months) and was casually toying with the idea of catching a ride with Stuart to town sometime soon and getting more. There was a library of course, a huge room filled with books up to the ceiling, but the newest tome was from about 1920.<p>

This pleasant downtime didn't last long. The rain was back with vengeance after only three days and Thor dragged his feet up the stairs one afternoon, having just killed some time with helping Molly bake, but still feeling restless. Reaching the top, he hesitantly looked to the right wing, where Loki's room was, weighing if he was desperate enough to seek his company. In the end, he went to his own room, only to find out that decision was out of his hands.

Loki was sprawled on his bed on his back, one of Thor's fantasy paperbacks in hands, squinting at it as he held it above him. He didn't even blink when Thor entered and closed the door.

"Oh look. The prince of the manor," threw Thor at him sarcastically. "Crawled out of your tower?"

Loki clucked his tongue disapprovingly, tossing the book aside and rolled onto his stomach, looking up at Thor.

"It speaks. Good. Now some manners and you will be tolerable."

"Says the guy who just crawled into my bed without asking."

Loki's eyebrows flew high and his mouth contorted as he tried to suppress a laugh. Thor could feel warmth on his face.

"Yeah, yeah... funny. Not what I meant," he grumbled and sat down at the old armchair, stretching out his legs.

"Of course not. We're brothers now, didn't you hear?"

Thor rolled his eyes. "What do you want? Ready to admit you are bored out of your mind in this place?"

"I can assure you I've done well enough without your presence. But yes, seeing as you are already here... Come on."

Thor suspiciously followed Loki who bounced off his bed and was out of the doors in seconds.

"Where are we going?"

"My room," Loki threw over his shoulder, not checking if Thor was coming.

"Why? To have a better view of the rain?"

Loki laughed and opened his door with a dramatic gesture.

"I have a TV," he grinned. "Among other things."

Thor's mouth fell open and then he laughed, elbowing Loki. "You piece of shit."

Just like the kitchen, Loki's room was pretty modern. It was a double room, really, connected by an empty door frame. In the second room, Thor could just glimpse bed and some bookshelves, but the first room was furnished by a huge couch, desk with a computer, a cosy corner with beanbags and, most prominently, a large TV with several different game consoles under it.

Thor looked around, followed by smirking Loki. There was simple blue and grey wallpaper covering the walls and a plush carpet on the floor. Only the windows and the desk betrayed where this room was located.

"Wow. I officially take the title of prince away from you."

"Oh, please don't. I have appearances to maintain," Loki snickered and flopped on the couch.

"I noticed."

"Don't pout, city boy. You enjoyed a few days of sun and fresh air. Now welcome to my den of decadent entertainment."

A few hours later, Thor had fully forgiven Loki for his behaviour in the previous days, whether it had come from being rusty in human interaction or the need for some fun. He could understand both after he witnessed Loki practically melt into a giddy boy as they raced, shot and fought each other on his playstation, shouting and laughing. It took hours until they were wrung out, fingers cramping from the joysticks, stomachs loudly reminding them it was time for dinner. They rushed down just as Molly was about to call them and wolfed down her pork pie and mashed potatoes. When they were done, Loki threw her an innocent look and stuck a bag of popcorn into the microwave. She only laughed at them before rummaging through a cupboard and throwing Thor a bag of sweets.

"Take some lemonade," she said.

Upstairs, Loki arranged their snacks and grabbed a remote before heading to one of his shelves.

"I don't know about you, but my reaction time is like five seconds off after that pie. Let's just watch a film."

Thor saw no issue with this and made himself comfortable on the couch, turning his attention fully to the action flick Loki picked. It was... nice. For the first time, he felt this might not be a total catastrophe. As the film ended, he was still in pretty good spirits, covered in bits of corn that Loki took to throwing at him.

"One more?" Loki asked.

"Sure," Thor grinned. "I have nowhere to be."

He let Loki pick again, taking the opportunity to steal the bag of sweets his new brother was hoarding and sprawled more comfortably.

The film started out with dark screen and slow, high pitched piano tones. Then the camera zoomed in on a dirty wooden floor covered with bits of torn, handwritten letter that were being blown away by soft wind.

"What kind of a movie is that?" Thor frowned.

"Oh, just something I've had for a while. It's a horror," Loki waved his hand dismissively and reached over to steal the bag back. Thor let him, sitting up.

Loki watched the screen for a while and then turned to Thor.

"What? Don't tell me you're scared."

"No! I just... sorry, but outside of your gamer cave, this is place is old and creepy."

A sly look appeared on Loki's face and he scooted closer to Thor.

"Wanna hold hands?"

"Ugh," Thor pushed him away, crossed his arms and turned his attention firmly to the TV.

It was not fun. As far as cinematography went, the film was actually excellent, which made it almost impossible for Thor to detach himself from the genuinely fear-inducing plot. At one point, he tried joking about it, only for the jape to fall flat and Loki shush him with a look of concentration, never looking away from the screen. So he gritted his teeth and watched. He shouldn't let this place turn him into a chicken.

"Cool movie," Loki yawned when the credits rolled.

"Hmm," Thor agreed, getting up and stretching. Something in his tone must have tipped Loki off and he smiled widely.

"Do you need me to walk you to your room? Aren't you afraid of this _old and creepy_ haunted house?"

"Please," Thor scoffed, having had just enough of Loki's teasing. "As if I believe in that stuff."

"Oh yeah? Prove it. I dare you to go the the attic and bring down the creepiest thing you can find in there."

Thor groaned, suppressing the uncomfortable jump of his stomach. "Forget it."

"So you admit you are afraid."

"No, I am saying that this is bullshit."

"Okay, sure," Loki shrugged airily. "Be a coward."

"You really are a piece of shit, aren't you?"

Loki popped the last sweet in his mouth and stared at Thor unblinkingly in an obvious challenge.

_Maybe it's for the best_, Thor told himself. If he went up there and nothing happened, it would be easier to really believe that the weird events of his first night were completely rational and harmless. He didn't like having to look over his shoulder.

"Fine. Do you have a flash light?"

Loki vaulted of the couch in obvious surge of giddiness and quickly brought Thor a sturdy torch.

"I changed the batteries pretty recently. Sometimes the electricity gives out and we have to be prepared."

Thor took the thing and turned it on. It shone with intense light and the illuminated circle was quite wide.

He sighed. "The creepiest thing?"

"The creepiest thing."

He set out on the trek up two huge flight of stairs, then turned left to pass through a long halfway until he came upon, much smaller staircase that led to the attic. He congratulated himself on remembering the way. He didn't look left or right, keeping the circle of light firmly on the carpet in front of him. He didn't see or hear out of the ordinary, even as scenes from the film he had just seen kept flashing to the front of his mind. And if his heart was beating a bit quicker than usual, he attributed it to the stairs.

The door to the attic opened easily even as the hinges screeched. The attic wasn't completely dark - enough moonlight came through the windows. The air was smelling dry due to all the dust and there was a bit of mould in it too. He scrunched up his nose and made a circle with his flash light, looking around the carelessly strewn furniture. There was a cluttered desk on the far side of the room and he decided to start there, ready to just grab something and get out. Like hell he would dig through those shelves and closets.

There was a picture in a frame, very old, of a lady dressed in a long dress with a corset. He was no expert, but he thought it must have been at least 150 years old. She was dressed in black and had that weird expression that historical photographs often brought and so Thor shrugged and took it. There was a real possibility that he was just about to call Loki's great-great-great aunt or something the creepiest thing in the room, but the little fucker would just have to deal with it.

His flash light was pointed at the glass frame and the shine made his eyes completely blind to the rest of the room.

When it gave out without warning, he was left with the frame and the photograph still burning in his retinas.

The juicy curse he was about to mutter died in his throat when the door shut closed with a _bang_.


	2. Chapter 2

Thor stared at the dim ceiling of his room, his mind refusing to slow down.

After almost jumping out of his skin in the attic, he experienced a really bizarre moment of disconnection. He had been terrified, barely breathing as little shocks and tremors ran through him and yet he had moved immediately, striding towards the doors to open them (for a split second he thought they might be locked). He ran blindly through the dark until he was two floors down on the illuminated hallway where his and Loki's rooms were. He snapped out of it only at Loki's enquiries which he quickly shook off, gave him the frame that he was apparently still clutching in a sweaty hand and fled to his room.

_There really is something fucking weird in this house_, was his first clear thought when he laid down, wide awake and completely baffled. _First those sounds, then the door rattling, then I was locked in here... what the fuck was it in the attic? My flash light giving out and the door slamming shut at the same moment? Was that a draft?_

_A draft. Right. Nobody uses the top two floors. Everything is sealed shut, _countered another voice.

Then his thoughts simply shattered into a whirlwind of _afterlife, ghosts, haunted, supernatural, poltergeists, spirits, demons,... _It only went downhill from there. Eventually he fell into a fitful sleep, often jerking awake and drowning in half-concious thoughts and dreams. He slept soundly for a few hours after the sun came up, but when he staggered out of his room close to noon, he still felt groggy and unwell.

Loki sneaked up on him in the kitchen as he was piling his plate with left-over pie and potatoes.

"Rise and shine," he quipped and jumped up to sit on the kitchen desk. When Thor only grumbled something unintelligible in response, he took to silent whistling, watching Thor eat for a few minutes.

"So," Loki begun again. "First, I'm going to totally ignore how you almost pissed your pants last night."

"You do that and I won't break your nose for giving me a faulty flash light."

Loki clutched his hands to his chest dramatically. "I would never!"

Something in Thor loosened a bit when Loki more or less admitted to screwing him over. The rest could just be a coincidence then...

Loki's expression sobered. "Seriously though, you looked pretty spooked."

Whatever theories Thor had about this weird house, he was not about to share them with his sly new step-brother.

"Well, I wasn't, okay?"

Loki raised his palms in defeat. "All right, fine..."

Thor glanced out of the window. "It's not raining anymore. What can we do outside around here?"

"We could go to the lake... or try and visit the Thompsons. They have horses and might even let us ride." He paused. "If you know how to, of course."

"You have neighbours? Could have fooled me. Let's just go to the lake."

He picked the lake not only because he was itching for a swim, but also because he had no desire to exchange one stuffy old house for another.

"Great. I'm gonna go hunt down Molly and see if she can prepare us some food and I will meet you outside in half an hour."

According to Loki, the lake was two miles away and Thor set a brisk pace since it was already afternoon.

"You don't really get the concept of a stroll through nature, do you?" Loki complained, but went along. He was not a bad company during the walk, chatting away about the countryside and its little secrets and corners. It struck Thor as a bit sad that Loki apparently honestly did like living there, but he was missing someone to share it with. He realized he was willing to fill that space, at least temporarily. Out here in the sun, surrounded by lush green hills that seemed so full of life (the sheep were _everywhere_), it was easier to think rationally. His worries from last night seemed ridiculous. _I watched a bloody horror and then went digging through a dark and dusty old room, _he thought. _No wonder it creeped me out._

The lakeside was beautiful and the water looked so inviting that Thor chucked off his clothing as soon as they reached it.

"It's cold," Loki rolled his eyes, setting down a backpack filled to brim with sandwiches and biscuits.

Thor made sure the laces on his swimming trunks held fast and grinned at Loki. "Well, I dare you to come swim with me."

"Ha-bloody-ha."

The sweet smell of water and sunshine was intoxicating and Thor casually approached Loki, who was standing with his arms crossed.

"Do you have your phone with you?"

"My phone?" Loki's brows scrunched in confusion. "What do you want with- oh. Oh nononono. Forget it."

"A wallet?" continued Thor, stalking the rapidly retreating Loki.

"Yes, everything is in my pockets! Passport, a thousand quid in notes, birth certificate, grandmother's will, I have all of that on me!"

"Liar," Thor laughed and lunged forward, just managing to wrap an arm around Loki's waist before he could bolt and immediately started dragging him towards the water.

"Stop, stop, I give up! I will go in, but let me undress first."

Thor paused for a second, squinting his eyes. Loki was the very picture of innocence, green eyes wide and seemingly honest. This close, Thor could see a few freckles on his nose, dabbled over the otherwise pale, smooth skin.

_He's pretty, _Thor thought and the idea startled him so much that he let Loki abruptly go, making him waver on his feet. Definitely inappropriate thinking.

"Come on then," he blurted, covering how flustered he felt. Loki's eyebrows arched pointedly anyway and all he could do was turn around and throw himself into the cold water.

It was, in fact, freezing and he gasped a little, making powerful strokes to warm himself up. A splash and then a squeal coming from the waterfront soon after told him that Loki was true to his word and joined him.

He slowed down and waited for Loki to catch up, which he did with surprising speed.

"You have a nice technique," he couldn't help but note.

"Thanks, that means a lot coming from a professional." It was clear what Loki thought of Thor's activity of choice in the way he said _professional. _Thor ignored it.

"Do you swim here often?"

"Not really. I like to stay away from the loch-ness monsters."

"Fucking Christ, you and your scare stories. You have issues, dearest brother."

Loki snickered and turned to float on his back.

"Brother, huh? You got used to that quickly."

There was something weird about Loki's tone, but Thor didn't have a chance to explore it because Loki suddenly slid through the water like an otter, disappeared beneath the surface and emerged far away from Thor, heading for the shore. Thor kept swimming for a while longer, but the cold was getting to him and soon he followed.

They sprawled on towels on the small beach, willing the sunshine to warm them up and dug into their provisions.

Thor chewed on a ham and cucumber sandwich and pondered Loki's odd words.

"Do you have a problem with my father?" he asked. Loki poked the slice of hard-boiled egg in his sandwich so it wouldn't fall out and only then answered.

"No, I don't, actually. I'm almost surprised."

"I like your mum too. I think she makes my dad happy," Thor said, pleased by the response, until Loki's face hardened and he looked Thor square in the eye.

"And that's great, you know. For _them_. But you're not my brother and this is not your home. Let's be clear on that."

Thor was too stunned for words and could only swallow his food dryly. He was not expecting that.

* * *

><p>Loki's cold behaviour lasted for more than a day. In the evening, Thor was left to his own devices which was particularly uncomfortable as it really meant lying in bed for hours, trying to read, while at the same time he couldn't concentrate because he kept listening for any unusual sounds. It resulted in another restless night that left him with blue shadows under his eyes. When he woke, the weather was moody, overcast and threatening to rain. Despite the occasional hopeful ray of sunshine peeking out, the clouds never really cleared. He wandered through the first and ground floor aimlessly, discovering that while he didn't encounter anything disconcerting, the atmosphere of the house felt heavy and suffocating.<p>

When he met Loki in the evening for dinner (tomato soup and cheese chips), the boy acted daintily, with certain empty cheer that grated on Thor's nerves.

"Do you want to watch a film tonight?" Loki asked.

Thor paused, a spoon with soup halfway to his mouth. Loki didn't stop eating for a second, scooping up what was left in his plate and already getting up to hand it back to Molly and get the chips from her.

"Sure," he said finally. "But I choose."

Loki only shrugged disinterestedly in reply and Thor was left to wonder why he bothered with the invitation in the first place. Upstairs, he browsed through Loki's dvd collection while Loki stiffly sat on the couch, not saying anything. With each second ticking away in silence Thor was getting more and more confused and with that, angry.

"What is your problem?" he finally accosted Loki.

"Watch your tone, city boy," Loki hissed in reply but, infuriatingly, he didn't even look Thor in the face.

"Son of a bitch," Thor murmured and grabbed the first casing that came to his hand and put the disk into the player before throwing himself on the far end of the couch, putting as much distance between himself and Loki. Half an hour into the film, he even began to relax. That changed when he unexpectedly found himself with a lap full of Loki's feet.

"Get your stinky socks out of my face," he grumbled and tried to shake the limbs off. No such luck. Loki stuck one of his feet between Thor's legs, the other he hooked over his thigh in firm hold and stayed right there.

"My couch," Loki pointed out calmly, eyes never leaving the screen.

"What are you, five?"

"Shut up and watch."

Twenty minutes later Thor was relieved of his burden (admittedly, he didn't really mind all that much).

"This shit is boring," Loki proclaimed. "I'm going to go down and grab something to eat."

He came back a few minutes later with a huge bag of salted potato crisps.

"Took you long enough," Thor noted, tearing the bag open and stuffing a fistful into his mouth.

"Molly hid them. She snacks on them when she thinks no one sees."

He expected Loki to take the food back from him immediately, but he instead plastered himself to Thor's side and kept reaching into the bag in Thor's hold and taking the crisps one by one. The constant jostling was irritating.

"Could you maybe take a handful like a normal person?"

"I don't want to feed the rats with crumbs. They get cocky if they're not hungry. Next they will eat my toes when I'm sleeping."

"Wha-" Thor processed the ridiculous declaration for a second before he doubled over in laughter. Looking up, he saw Loki's smile flash in victory.

They snickered amicably for a moment and Thor was happy to let go of the tension. Maybe it was just because there really wasn't anybody else, but despite his prickly behaviour, he felt his new step-brother was sort of growing on him. Step-brother who however didn't like to be reminded of that particular fact, albeit he was otherwise moderately welcoming. Like tonight – Loki had been obviously still mad about something (Thor didn't know exactly what), but extended an invitation for a bit of fun anyway. Thor felt that it was an admirable effort.

"Sorry if I made you mad. At the lake," he said carefully. Loki's smile faltered for a moment and he watched Thor intently, as if trying to figure him out.

"You really are sort of... nice, aren't you?" he huffed a laugh. It caught Thor off guard. This wasn't the sort of thing anyone has ever said to him. He laughed awkwardly.

"And you are a piece of shit," he jokingly repeated his assessment from earlier, poking Loki in the ribs for good measure, earning himself a flying crisp hitting him in the forehead.

"Seriously though," Loki said then, slapping away Thor's fingers when he threatened to tickle. "Let's not do the whole... brother thing, okay?"

It looked like he might want to add something, so Thor only nodded and waited, but after a minute Loki turned to the TV again.

_Just a week ago I didn't even want to come here and meet him_, Thor told himself. _Why does this bother me?_

His mind was so busy trying to figure Loki out, to put a finger on what exactly did he like about the boy and what irritated him (and then it led to him thinking about his father and Laufey and how would this new family turn out) that he showered and climbed into bed without a thought spared for the eerie events of last days. It was only when he was lying in the dark, plumbing quietly processing the rest of his shower and then shutting off to leave him in perfect silence, that a shiver ran through him again.

The more he ordered himself to go to sleep, the more awake he felt. His eyes simply wouldn't stay closed and his gaze roamed restlessly over the room, occasionally catching at the reflective golden pattern of the old wallpaper. It didn't take long for his mind to begin playing tricks on him – he thought he saw light shimmering over the wall to his left, he felt like this or that shadow in the corner was bigger than before. Then ideas started creeping into his head – what would he do if he suddenly saw a face or a figure hovering by his window? What would he do if he heard something moving under his bed or in the closet? What if the clock on the wall suddenly started going backwards?

It was impossible to stop these mutinous thoughts once the dam broke and he shut his eyes, cursing at himself for being so weak.

"_Thor."_

His heart all but stopped.

"_Thor."_

Then it started beating again in shocked cadence, leaping so hard in his chest he thought he might not survive this.

"_Shh..."_

The sounds were no more than the lightest whispers. Shuffling his covers would be louder. Tucking in hair behind his ear would be louder. And yet it was impossible to ignore and unthinkable to deny that the voice, the gritty, rough, breathy voice, had said his name.

His palms were sweating, he noticed, as he forced himself to let go of the coverlet he was clutching.

"_Thor."_

Slowly, very slowly he sat up. It took a lot of will to reach over to his bedside table lamp, but he did it and switch it on. He swept the entire length of the room with his eyes quickly. It seemed empty, looking just as it did when he went to sleep. Steeling himself, he got up and stood in the middle of the room.

"All right. Who is there?"

He counted his heartbeats. At three hundred, there was still no response.

"Show yourself," he tried, feeling more like a fool with every second. The only answer was silent tapping and he turned to see its source, but it was only rain beginning to fall. He stood with goosebumps all over his body in the middle of softly illuminated room, listening to nothing but sounds of rain that grew louder and louder as the skies opened up.

He was afraid, but he also felt like fighting. Something wasn't right here. He would get to the bottom of it.

_So, maybe it's a ghost. What is it gonna do to me? Can it touch me? If it can, I can touch it too. And if I can touch it, I can punch it. My fear is my biggest enemy here. _

_And if it's some sort of a ruse... well, even better then._

But whatever it was, it was not up for challenge and he was left standing there for long minutes before he decided to go back to sleep. He was almost surprised at himself when he turned off the light without hesitation.

An hour later, just as he was falling asleep, the whispering started again.

"_Thor."_

"_Shh."_

"_Thor."_

It was almost imperceptible over the rain but his ears picked up on the voice anyway. He jolted awake, but this time, he wasn't quite as startled.

"_Thor."_

For some reason, his instincts were telling him not to be afraid. _It sounds exactly the same, _he realized. _Where is it coming from?_

With determination, he turned on the light and jumped from bed. As if on cue, the whispering stopped.

He tore everything in the room open – closets, drawers, shelves, looking inside a vase with dried flowers on a table, ruffling through his now-empty luggage. He even tapped at the walls a little, but admittedly he didn't know what he was looking for.

"Come on, think," he ordered himself out loud. The biggest mystery was figuring out from what direction were the whispers coming.

There had been no direction. The sound had been surrounding him. _Under the bed._

He threw himself on the stomach, craning his head to see. Apart from some dust and cobwebs, he had a clear view to the other side of the bed. He was disappointed until he tried reaching out and blindly felt the underside of the mattress, sweeping his palm over the bed construction and old linen.

There!

Duct taped to the underside of his bed was a small mobile phone. Thor pulled it free in silent disbelief and sat cross-legged on the floor, examining it. When he pushed a button, the screen lit up, revealing four missed calls. He opened the setting menu to confirm his suspicions and there it was – customized ring tune called record002. He didn't need to play it to know that it would be saying "Thor" and "shh" on repeat, muffled and distorted by something.

"Piece of shit," he murmured, sprang to his feet, jerking the door open angrily, and ran down the hall. He might have imagined it, but he thought he saw the tiniest movement when he reached the other half of the hallway. Loki's door closing in hurry.

He barged in furiously, flipping on the light switch. When he found the first room empty, he continued to Loki's bedroom with determination.

"Thor? What are you-?"

Loki was a bundle of sheets and blankets, looking up confusedly, but Thor wasn't fooled. Not anymore.

He reached down to yank the covers from Loki, earning himself a scared yelp. But rightly enough, Loki was fully dressed in jeans and t-shirt under there.

"Care to explain this?" Thor asked, voice trembling with barely contained anger, and held up the phone. "Or should I call the number that popped up on the screen and let us both listen to your phone ringing?"

Watching the shift of Loki expression as his gaze slid from the phone to Thor's face and back again was chilling. The make-believe confusion and innocence melted away to a hard, cool smile.

"Finally figured it out, huh? I thought you were even dumber than that."

"What the fuck? Why did you do this?" Thor yelled. Loki rolled off the bed, stepping right into Thor's space and pushing at his chest to make him walk out of the bedroom.

"Why? Look at yourself, you arrogant ass. You come here, letting everyone know how _bored_ you are, how _old_ this house is, how you _hate_ it here. Well guess what! I couldn't be happier to see you get on a fucking train, go back to wherever you came from and never fucking come back!"

Thor was taken aback by the violence in Loki's voice for a second, but found himself shouting back anyway.

"You had this prepared before I even got here! That first night? Locking my door? You want me to believe that I pissed you off so badly during one afternoon?"

Loki smiled meanly. "Well, obviously I knew about you from my mother. It's all she can do not to slap you upside down, you know. You can expect some changes in your lovely little life when they get back."

"What is she going to do? Lock me in a castle and make a psycho out of me as she apparently did with you?"

"A psycho? At least I'm not shitting my pants, looking for monsters under my bed!"

Thor was ready to shoot back, just barely refraining from grabbing Loki and shaking him when they were both startled by a scolding voice.

"Boys! What is this?" Julia in a long nightgown and with her hair pinned up was standing in the door frame, stern expression on her face.

"It's after midnight! What is all this yelling and running around? Why are you fighting?"

Thor's mouth snapped closed and he stepped away from Loki, totally at loss for words and feeling a bit ashamed. It still pleased him to see that Loki's face took on a deep red colour.

"I'm sorry, Julia," Loki said.

She was not placated. "Thor, go back to your room. I see you are at least ready for sleep. Loki, you go brush your teeth and to bed, now."

They both went and did as they were told, hanging their heads, tempers quickly cooling under Julia's severe gaze. Thor trailed away slowly back to his room, hovering by the doors, waiting for Julia to leave Loki's room. A couple of minutes later she appeared, saw him waiting and walked over.

"I'm sorry," he said. "We were just... we had a misunderstanding."

She sighed and patted his arm. "It's fine, dear. Loki can be a little... well, he's alone a lot."

Thor nodded, unsure of what to say.

"Neither of you is in an easy situation, I understand. Just try and think before you act. I told Loki the same thing. Slamming doors and yelling won't solve anything. Well, goodnight, Thor."

"Good night."

He stood and watched her leave, feeling even more low than he did coming to this house in the first place. He was just about to close the door behind him when he frowned as something occurred to him. _Slamming doors? _

There was a loud bang coming from the stairs and he jumped, poking his head out to the hallway.

"Julia? Are you all-right?" he called out. There were odd shuffling noises coming from the lower floor and the now-familiar bite of fear appeared in his stomach again. _Don't be fucking stupid. It was all Loki._

"Just fine, darling!" came her voice. He shrugged and went to sleep, suddenly feeling very exhausted. He didn't dream.

* * *

><p>The next day, Loki avoided him like the plague and Thor returned the effort. He took advantage of an acceptable weather and took a long walk around the premises, getting familiar with the hills surrounding it and spending a good portion of an hour talking to a couple of tourists who were trekking Lake District on foot. They knew much more about the country than he did.<p>

In the light of the day, he was completely uprooted by what happened the previous night. Looking back on the days he spent in the Grey Rose Cottage, he realized that his worst expectations weren't really met. True, he's had some nasty scares and spent a few hours thinking about things he never thought he would believe existed, but the rest had been okay. Acceptable. Pleasant even. He had been lulled into a sense of safety.

He had been literally chasing ghosts, blind to the actions of a real, breathing person.

A memory came to him, of a cold winter day when his grandmother took him to a cemetery to visit his late grandfather's grave. He couldn't have been more than five. It was afternoon and dusk was approaching rapidly. He was frightened, jumping at every shadow, until she scooped him up and told him: "Be afraid of the living, not the dead. The dead can't hurt you."

Looking back, it wasn't the most positive piece of advice, but his child's mind was so intrigued by the completely unexpected point of view that he stopped being scared.

_That's exactly what I should be doing now_. Figuring out how to deal with Loki. For his own sanity (he still had almost two months to spend in this place) and for his father's sake.

He headed back to the house, stalling by taking a detour though the garden and sitting by the pond. There were some Chinese carps in it, in pretty golden and pink hues and he watched them roll their eyes and flap tiny mouths until the sun went down.

Going in through the back French doors, he was surprised by how oppressive the house felt. Even the scents of old wood and fur were stronger. The air was still and stale and the silence weighted down on him. Where was everybody? He crossed the hall to check the kitchen, but he was stopped in his tracks by the sound of rapid footsteps and his name being called out.

Loki stumbled out from behind a corner and Thor recoiled in shock.

If he thought Loki was pale before, he was now pasty white, eyes wide and terror-stricken. But the worst part was defnitely the blood – streaming from Loki's nose, covering his mouth and dripping down his chin, making mess of his shirt and hands. Despite that, the relief was palpable on Loki's face when he saw Thor and he slowed down his frantic run and bent over. Swallowing his shock, Thor hurried to him, helping him straighten up and offering an arm to lean on, which he did gratefully.

"What the hell happened?"

"I... something,... _someone, _pushed me down the stairs."

"What?! Like a... burglar? We have to get everybody down here and call the police. Come-"

"No, no, Thor, oh god, wait! It wasn't... "

Loki pushed him away lightly, just to an arm's length, fingers still grasping Thor's shoulder even as he distanced himself. He covered his eyes with the other hand, breathing heavily through his mouth. Thor let him get himself together, even if he felt like running, yelling for Molly and Julia to get them safe,_ anything_.

Finally Loki looked up with an air of determination. The effect was spoiled by tear streaks that watered down the blood on his face and that Thor didn't notice before.

"I didn't _see_ anyone. Whoever or whatever it was, it was invisible."


	3. Chapter 3

"I don't really believe you, you know," Thor said conversationally as he wiped Loki's face with a wet towel.

Loki was seated on the kitchen table, clutching a glass of cold water and Thor did his best to clean him up and treat his nose. Molly and Stuart had the night off and drove to Keswick to see some friends and he didn't see Julia anywhere. It was preferable to think that Loki was crazy enough to throw himself down a flight of stairs to spook Thor than to think that the old lady was somewhere in the house, in danger.

Loki winced when Thor pushed the towel too hard to his nostril and then tried to speak.

"I don't blame you."

Thor sighed, wetting the towel anew.

"Tell me again exactly what happened. Every step and every detail."

"I walked out of my room. Went down the stairs. Then I heard something, behind me. I turned around and... I don't know. There might have been a blur... I'm not... I'm not sure. It might have just been... I was falling the next second. So either there was something moving so fast... or I just... imagined it in the fall. But I know I definitely felt something touch me. Push me. Here."

Loki pointed to his upper arms and without thinking, Thor rolled up his sleeve to see.

The skin on Loki's biceps was a bit reddened, but that was all. Nothing he couldn't do by squeezing the arm with his other hand.

"Okay," he said. "Are you banged up anywhere else?"

"What? Oh... uhm. All over." Loki grimaced and experimentally stretched his legs. "I'm just gonna put some ice one my knee, I hit it pretty hard."

"Sit. I will get it."

Loki rolled up the leg of his trousers and hissed when he revealed a slightly swollen, bruising knee. Thor wrapped a bag of frozen peas in a towel and handed it to Loki.

"Thanks," he murmured.

"No problem. Now wait here and I will find Julia."

"I'll go with you!"

Thor raised his eyebrows and Loki blushed a bit. "I know the house better."

There was a couple of choice words on the tip of Thor's tongue considering all the fright that Loki had purposefully given him, but he held them back. Even if nothing else was true, Loki was _really_ hurt.

They found Julia shortly after. She was sitting in the drawing room that Thor had his first tea in (and haven't really been there since), sorting through a stack of books and letters.

"Julia?"

"Yes, dear?" she asked, thumbing through a book.

"We just wanted to say goodnight," Thor said after a pause, surprised at her reaction. She didn't even look up when they came in.

"Goodnight?" she asked, alarmed, finally raising her head. "It's merely- oh."

She turned to a window, seemingly surprised to find it dark outside.

"Silly me, I lost track of time. Goodnight, boys." And with that, she was back to browsing the book.

Thor turned to Loki questioningly, but he just shrugged and pulled Thor out of the door. Thor gave him a careful look-over. His nose was red and obviously bruised, his eyes bloodshot. He definitely didn't look okay and Julia didn't even notice.

That didn't seem to concern Loki for some reason.

"I wish we could warn her, but there is no way she would believe us," he said miserably.

Thor didn't know what to do. He didn't even know if he believed Loki in the first place. And if he chose to do so, where would that leave them? With a ghost knocking people down the stairs? If that was the case, they would need to make sure Julia was safe, no matter how crazy it made them look.

Thor led them back into the kitchen, because with its bright lights and modern furniture, it felt like a haven of rationality.

"Now," he turned to Loki with steel in his voice. "I want you to think really hard about what happened. Did you eat enough today? Was your sugar low? Could you have tripped? Could you have been pushed by a real person, somebody moving really quickly? Or are you keeping up your ghost stories?"

"Thor, for fuck's sake-" Loki's voice wavered and he hid his face in his hands for a moment. Then he took a deep breath.

"I have lived here for most of my life, okay? I know every inch of this place. I have never been scared here, not even as a kid. When I was... when I was playing tricks on you, I was as good as crawling through these rooms, in total dark, coming up with the best ways to fake a ghost appearance and it never even occurred to me to be afraid. So... I... it was real, okay? I was fine and then I was pushed. I don't-"

Loki let out a frustrated huff. "I can't even talk properly."

Thor leaned on his hands against the kitchen table surface and closed his eyes in concentration.

"Here's what we are gonna do," he said firmly after a minute, straightening up. "We're going to call Molly and Stuart and tell them that you fell down the stairs and that we don't want to bother Julia because she looks tired. We will ask them to come back so that Stuart can drive you to a hospital if you turn out to have a concussion or something. We will have strength in numbers then, yeah?"

Loki nodded, leading Thor to a phone and fishing out a notebook in which Molly's mobile phone number was written down and called, relating to Molly exactly what he had planned to. It was a bigger relief than he anticipated to hear her confirming they would be back in an hour and a half.

"Do you want to wait here or go upstairs?" Thor asked Loki after he hung up.

"Let's just stay here," Loki said, sitting down at the table.

Thor decided to keep an eye on the hall, checking on Julia from time to time, but nothing moved or happened while they waited. Half way through, he made hot chocolate and they sipped it quietly. When there was finally crunching of grovel from outside, announcing Molly and Stuart, they both let out breaths of relief.

Molly fussed over Loki a bit, checking his face and bruises and then frowned a little, eyes darting to Thor.

"Thor, could you please go get Stuart? He should be in the garage."

Thor went, only to meet Stuart half-way as he was already coming in.

"Did you see Julia?" he asked the gardener. "She was a little... I don't know. She hardly even noticed Loki and she was browsing though some old crap."

Stuart scratched his beard lightly. "That's odd. I will tell Molly. You boys were smart to call us."

He gave Thor a little pat on the back and went to the kitchen. Thor trailed after him, somehow unwilling to be without company.

Molly was just sending Loki off to bed. Loki caught his eye in a silent plea.

"I'm going, too," Thor said to Molly and Stuart, obliging him. "Goodnight."

In the corner of his eye, Thor could see Loki stiffening as they approached the stairs, but he never slowed down. Together, they climbed up to the upper floor and stopped. Thor glanced to both sides of the hallway while Loki pinched the swollen bridge of his nose.

"I really, really don't want to do this, but... will you please stay with me tonight?"

He didn't look Thor in the eye, instead staring at the floor, his jaw clenching. Thor could imagine what it cost his pride to ask.

"I could totally blow you off right now, let you stew in your room all alone, scared of every sound," Thor told him softly. Loki started studying the ceiling instead of the carpet.

"I know."

Thor knew he didn't have it in him to do that. There was something... something about the house, something about the way Julia acted, something about the way Loki's eyes widened at every sound, not to mention the way his banged up face looked. Maybe the cause was fake, but the fear was real.

"Come on, then," he nudged Loki.

Loki's room, with its new wallpapers, carpets, furniture and gadgets held a similar sense of sanctuary as the kitchen did and they both relaxed.

"Do you want to take the couch or sleep with me?" Loki asked awkwardly. Thor eyed the overly plump couch and then Loki's bed which looked like it could be enough for three people.

"Unless you kick and spit and snore in your sleep, I think I would like the bed."

Loki snorted and then grimaced, feeling his nose gingerly. "I don't."

Thor used Loki's bathroom and undressed, opting to sleep only in his boxers. Loki was clad in pyjama bottoms and an old, loose t-shirt. He gave Thor's bare chest a look that Thor couldn't decipher. "Do you want to borrow a shirt?"

"No, it's fine," he shrugged and crawled under the covers.

"Sure," Loki replied with a bit of undertone.

Loki turned off the lights and they settled down in silence. Thor felt wide awake even if his eyes were itching a little and his limbs were tired.

Loki broke the silence first.

"Molly sent you after Stuart so that she could get me alone and ask if you beat me up."

Thor opened his mouth to protest against the unfairness of it, but shut it right away. He supposed that mysterious fall down the stairs was a little less likely than two boys using their fists to settle a disagreement.

Loki continued. "Don't worry though, she believed me when I said you didn't."

"You could have made your life easier if you said I did it," Thor pointed out. He supposed that he would be swiftly kicked out back to London. Just like Loki wanted.

"How? By being the only one left here who would even consider the possibility that there is something unnatural going on?"

"Glad to hear you are finally warming up to me."

Loki choked a laugh and then groaned a bit in pain.

"Go to sleep," Thor told him. "I promise to wake you if I see someone standing over you."

"Fuck, no."

"Or, you know, hear something under the bed."

"Thor."

"Or if the windows are blown open."

"Shut up."

"Did you just see something move over there?"

"Oh my god."

The bed shook with Loki trying to swallow hysterical giggles and Thor took pity and stopped his suggestions, feeling that he got his revenge.

"All right, all right... sleep, okay?"

"I don't think I can."

Despite that, Thor could hear Loki's breathing even out just a couple of minutes later. He wasn't really surprised. He's had his share of injuries from trying out various sports before he settled for swimming and he knew that they were more exhausting than it would seem.

Whatever humour he had scraped up teasing Loki was gone. He felt like he had a bit of head-start with this whole thing. He's already gone through sorting his wild thoughts about the paranormal. True, he had scrapped his theories for a couple of merciful hours, but he could recycle them easily.

He's only met Loki a week ago but he could already easily say what made the other boy, with his sharp smiles and sharper words, tick. He was proud and unforgiving – Thor could tell as much from Loki's treatment of his own person. Thor had turned Loki against him by not being respectful enough to the values that Loki found important. Loki loved Lake District while Thor fought tooth and nail not to have to come here. Thor wanted company while Loki thrived in his solitary. It made Thor repulsive in Loki's eyes and he set out to punish him.

Considering all this, the scariest thing Thor has encountered during the whole of his stay at the Grey Rose Cottage was being where he was at that very moment.

Troublesome Loki was lying in bed beside him, after having outright asked Thor to stay with him because he was too scared to be alone. Thor watched the silhouette of Loki's face in the dark. _He was really afraid, otherwise I wouldn't be here, _he admitted unhappily. As Thor watched, Loki's relaxed features tightened into a frown and he murmured something in his sleep. Without thinking, Thor reached out and caressed Loki's cheek lightly until he quieted down. Only when Loki's mouth opened a fraction and he let out a little snore was when he pulled his fingers away, shaking his head at himself. That was a silly thing to do.

Thor didn't remember falling asleep. First thing he noticed when he was conscious again was the bleak, grey light of dawn streaming through the windows and the unmistakable feeling that something had just woken him up, but he couldn't say what. It also soon became clear to him that he would not fall asleep again, despite the sand in his eyes and his internal clock telling him that it was uncomfortably early.

Loki beside him was still in deep sleep. His bruised face was calm and relaxed and he was breathing steadily. Thor's limbs were struck by a sort of stillness as he didn't wish to disturb him. But eventually he extradited himself from the covers and peeked out of the doors to find the house completely quiet.

"Thor?" Loki called out from the bedroom.

"I'm here," he said, going back. "Just looking around."

When he went back, he was surprised to find Loki pulling on a pair of jeans so vigorously that he had to hop on one foot and then the other to get dressed properly.

"Are you feeling better?" Thor asked uncertainly.

"Yeah!" Loki agreed, pulling a clean t-shirt over his head. "We need to get to the bottom of this. Come on!"

Loki supervised Thor's getting dressed with a foot tapping impatiently. When Thor finally pulled on all of his yesterday clothing, they ran downstairs only to discover it completely empty.

"Molly! Julia!" Loki called out.

Thor spotted the folded piece propped against a napkin holder first. His stomach dropped and he snatched it up and opened it. Loki hurried towards him to read it over his shoulder.

"Shit," Loki murmured, his breath hitting Thor's neck.

The note, written in Molly's shaky hand, said that early that morning, Julia had some kind of episode or stroke and they took her to a hospital. They wouldn't be back for several days as they had to wait for the tests to figure out what was wrong. She suggested that they call their parents or consider going to London, adding a few tips about who to call to give them a ride to the train station. The names meant nothing to Thor, but he guessed Loki knew who she was talking about. He turned to ask, but Loki was already furiously pushing a number into a phone, fidgeting as he waited for an answer.

"Molly? It's Loki. How's Julia?"

Molly talked for a while as Loki's frown grew deeper and deeper.

"But how could she not-? I mean we saw her last night."

Then he nodded to whatever Molly was saying. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

A pause. "You should call my mother so that she can send you some funds- No, no, I mean it, honestly, Molly. Your mother needs the best care right now. Yes, I know. Just text her anyway, okay? She would want to know. No, we're not going anywhere."

The last sentence caught Thor's attention.

When Loki hang up, Thor threw his arms wide in frustration.

"What do you mean we're not going anywhere?"

Loki's voice was calm, but with a determined undertone. "What Molly wrote about Julia having the stroke this morning wasn't really accurate. She's likely been having the episode since the day before because she has a bump on her head and a few broken toes. Like she fell and then forgot about it."

"Oh my god," Thor wheezed. "When she came to talk to us the other night... I heard a noise when she was leaving. I called out to her and she said she was fine."

"When she was leaving?" Loki repeated. "You mean when she was walking down the stairs?"

They let it hang between them for a moment.

"So basically," Loki sucked in a breath. "She fell down the stairs two nights ago. She was nowhere to be seen the whole day until the evening when we found her and she was confused about the time. Which, however, was only after I was pushed down the same flight of stairs."

Thor didn't like where this was going.

"What are you saying?"

"Think, idiot!" Loki hissed and gave Thor a little slap on the temple. "I'm saying that she was possessed after she fell and the spirit left her in the evening to try and get me instead."

Thor thought about this for a heartbeat and then snorted. "Yeah, right. If we're doing crazy theories right now, my vote is on tiny talking mice tying your shoelaces together."

"Not funny," Loki complained. "You know what, I really don't care what you think. I have work to do."

"What work?" Thor called out after him, but Loki was already leaving. Thor groaned to himself in frustration and went to get some cereal. As he crunched his breakfast, he watched gloomily as the sky became overcast and it started drizzling steadily. So much for escaping the house again.

Around noon, he gave up, heated up some beans, toasted a toast and went on a search for Loki. Ground floor was a no-show and to Thor's horror, so was the first one.

He dragged his feet up to second floor and looked both ways to assess the situation. He thought one of the doors was open and he went to investigate that first.

The room was a storage and an office in one it seemed, with an antique desk not unlike the one Thor had seen in the attic and a lot of shelves and drawers. He even saw a couple of modern looking lockable office boxes. Loki was sat on the ground in the middle of a heap of old documents.

Thor knocked on the door frame gently and Loki turned around, giving him a silent look. A bruise had formed under his eye.

"I thought you believed we had a vengeful spirit in our midst," Thor quipped, setting the plate on the desk. "Are you sure it's the best time to run off by yourself and hide in an abandoned storage?"

"What's the alternative? Waste time talking to you? Pack my bags and leave?"

"Well, as you've said yourself, I'm the only person in here who might be on the same page as you with this whole ghost thing." Loki said nothing ."Actually, I'm the only person here, period. So let's just... "

Thor gestured vaguely between the two of them, shrugging. Loki seemed to mull that over for a second, frowning at the paperwork he was holding. Then he got up and stretched with a groan. Thor's eyes were glued to him unwittingly.

Loki made a quick work of Thor's peace-offering lunch and gestured for Thor to sit and started explaining about death and birth certificates, documents about marriages, demolitions, renovations, newspaper clippings about scandals, accidents,... Everything was at least somewhat documented in that room, going back at least three centuries. Thor stared at the endless stacks of paper, many of them almost unreadable or falling apart.

"So everything that is somehow peculiar, that seems out of ordinary, something that ticks you off... I mean if you have any instincts at all... should go _here. _Then we will go over it together and talk it through," Loki finished his lecture.

Four hours and three decades of documents later Thor was ready to make himself a bait and run through the house yelling "_here, ghostie ghost! Come for me!_".

"Can we please leave this be?" he asked, his patience running out finally. "There is nothing in here!"

Loki didn't look up from his work.

"I've had my nose broken last night. Julia is in the hospital. Do you think it's not going to escalate?"

"I'm not saying we should stop. I'm saying we should do this differently."

"Oh, so you have a plan? I'm listening."

"Have you actually tried putting the... events that happened to us in google? See if some people had similar experiences?" It was the best Thor could come up with. Seeing the light slowly diminish behind the windows was enough for him to try this theory out on Loki. Anything to get him downstairs.

Loki tapped his fingers absent-mindedly. "You mean that we should pursue... the behaviour rather than the particular source?"

"Yes!" hissed Thor. "Whatever."

Loki paused, visibly tearing himself from his theories and focused his gaze on Thor. Thor looked back steadily. He was still bothered by Loki's battered face. In an empathetic sort of way.

"What are you so nervous about?" Loki questioned him.

"I'm _nervous _about you acting like a mad-man."

They ended up by Loki's computer browsing websites about ghost occurrences as a sort of compromise. Loki didn't want to stop their research, but Thor was adamant they take another approach. Thor was following what he thought was a good lead – an article that retold a story about a house becoming 'haunted' and then proceeded to link to several different articles that attempted to explain the phenomena, ranging anywhere from highly scientific to purely speculative. Loki didn't think it was a useful source and he clicked his tongue impatiently, turning back and forth on his chair, bumping into Thor who was kneeling on a bean bag beside him.

"Okay, that's enough," Loki grumbled when Thor got immersed in an ectoplasm theory. He reached to steal the mouse from Thor's grip and their fingers wrestled for a moment when Thor slapped his hand away. Then Loki withdrew and made a claw with his fingers, hissing lightly and jokingly dabbing at Thor's hand. The sound of Thor's laughter was cut short by a loud 'puff'. The screen went dark, accompanied by a few sparkles jumping from the back of it. The PC tower was dead too.

"I guess this means we were getting close?" Thor suggested as Loki stared at his now-ruined computer.

"Close? You had some pseudo-intellectual crap opened. It can't be it."

Thor sighed and rubbed his eyes. "This was the only computer here?"

"Yeah," Loki groaned.

They went down to get dinner. It was fully dark and without acknowledging it to the other, they were carefully turning lights on everywhere they went. Thor was starving and he set out to boil pasta and rummaged the cupboards for some canned sauce. Loki was no help, sitting by the table sipping coke and staring at the wall.

"Do you have some canned tomatoes?" Thor asked him.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, probably in the pantry. Molly likes to use fresh stuff mostly. I will go get them."

"Thanks."

The pasta water over-boiled and started spitting foam all over the stove because Thor stood nervously and watched the half opened doors of the pantry, waiting for Loki to come back.

He cursed, turning the heat down, and Loki set a can down on the kitchen desk.

"You are really jumpy," he snorted.

"I'm not jumpy. I've just never used this stove before, that's all."

Wolfing down the spaghetti with tomato sauce, Thor managed to get his thoughts in order. He wasn't afraid for himself. The odd anxiety he had been experiencing was foreign not only because he hardly ever had to reason to fear _anything, _but also because it concerned another person.

He was feeling protective.

Silly. Again.

Loki looked about as hungry as Thor felt and attacked his plate with abandon. Something went down the wrong orifice though and he started coughing, reaching for his glass and gulping it down, only for the soda to go out of his nose. Thor would have laughed if Loki's expression didn't immediately turn into one of acute pain, his eyes watering. His broken nose. Shit. Thor jumped up, catching Loki by the shoulders.

"Relax, breathe," he told him. Loki nodded and wheezed lightly, sucking in air.

"Fuck," he groaned. "It burns like hell."

"You should put ice on it, okay? I will get some."

"Thanks."

It seemed that bubbles shooting through a bruised part of anatomy was what it took to make Loki meek.

Thor gave him a pat on the shoulder and headed for the freezer.

He, of course, never got there. As he turned away from Loki, he was facing the window for a second and saw an unmistakable silhouette of a man right behind it, standing in the rain.

Then the power went out.

Thor froze, staring into the complete darkness outside, trying to see the figure again.

A few seconds later he realized Loki was clutching his wrist.

"I guess I can try and check the fuses... but I think we both know it won't do much good," Loki said finally into the silent darkness, his fingers slipping from Thor's hand as it they have never been there.

Thor took a deep breath.

"No, it probably won't. I just saw someone outside."


	4. Chapter 4

"I'm sorry, you _what_?!"

"There was a person standing outside," Thor said with calm he didn't really feel.

"And when you say person...?"

"I mean a silhouette. A shape. Standing still and creeping into the window."

"Okay. Right. Shit."

Thor's mind went on autopilot.

"It's possible that it was a living, breathing person," he began. Loki made to interrupt him, he could tell by hearing the other boy suck in a breath, but he wasn't going to be stopped. "We're gonna get a light, lock all the doors, arm ourselves with something and wait out the night."

"And if it wasn't a person?" Loki challenged him angrily.

"We can talk about that while we are looking for flash lights."

He grabbed Loki's shoulder in the dark and they manoeuvred together until they found a working flash light in one of the drawers and then Thor rushed Loki to go through all the possible entrances and they checked them all, hurrying side by side through the dark.

It was terrifying.

Thor was once again assaulted by all the smells of the house, the dust and old textiles combined with a little bit of mildew and wood. In the dark, with only one small flash light illuminating the long halls, every painting seemed to be filled with grotesque shapes and distorted faces. Thor preferred to keep his eyes on the ground, following the cone of light. His free hand never left Loki's arm.

They worked their way through five different entrances on the ground floor, from the main, huge doors to something akin to a cat door at the back of the laundry room. The whole time they kept their ears sharp. It wouldn't serve them well to lock everything only to find that whoever it was, was already inside. Thankfully apart from the main gate, everything had been locked as it should have been and Thor hoped that they would have heard it if the huge door had been opened.

They caught their breath in the laundry room and Loki shook Thor's hand from his arm.

"Come on," Thor said, turning back into the hallway. "Let's get some-"

Bang!

Thor jumped and whirled around, shining the flash light frantically in all directions. No one was around. Not even Loki.

"Thor?!"

"Loki!"

"I'm here, shit! Fuck! What the-"

Loki was still in the laundry room while Thor was out on the hallway. The door separating them was closed... and as Thor could easily tell from Loki's swearing and the rattling of the hinges, locked as well.

"Stand back!" Thor yelled. "I will try to kick the door."

"Don't bother, you idiot, it opens to your side!"

"Oh."

There was a pause and Thor didn't like the silence.

"Is there- Are you okay in there?"

"I was locked in here by a ghost and I don't see shit. It could be standing right in front of me for all I know. I'm awesome."

"Okay. Okay," Thor had to fight against a surge of panic. This was not good. He kept his circle of light firmly planted at the door, unwilling to turn back into the empty hallway. "How about picking the lock?"

"No clue how to do that," dead-panned Loki on the other side.

Thor swallowed and steeled himself.

"Fine. There is one other way."

"Yeah?"

"I go outside. Meet you at the other door."

"Thor..." Loki's voice sounded softer than usual. "You would have to go around the whole house basically."

"I have the flash light at least," Thor responded weakly.

"You _saw_ someone outside. It's too dangerous."

"So what that they were outside? They locked the door here, didn't they?" Terrible suspicion seized Thor. "Unless you did it again."

"I did not!" Loki spluttered. "I already apologized for that, okay? I'm not playing any games."

"Well, technically you didn't apologize."

Silence.

"Loki?"

"Still alive."

"Tell me how to get to your door."

Loki wasn't kidding when he said Thor would have to round the whole house. He very carefully described the shortest way.

"Got it?"

"Yeah. I'm going. See you in a minute. Stand by the door and don't open it until I get there."

It was the three longest minutes of Thor's life. His heart was beating in his throat so hard that he couldn't hear anything else over it. Stepping outside was the hardest. He was met with a cold gust of wind as soon as he walked out and despite the stars and moon up in the sky, everything seemed dark and hollow. His little island of light seemed pathetic in comparison. He wanted to run, but the last thing he needed was a sprained ankle. He forced himself to walk in long, steady strides instead and repeated Loki's directions in his head like a mantra. Turn left at the garage. Alcove on the right. Concrete pathway to the laundry room. He had it.

The tiny door was almost invisible in the dark.

"Loki?" he called out, wincing at the loud sound.

The door opened immediately and in the light reflected from the ground where his flash light shone steadily, he could see Loki's pale, but relieved face. He grabbed for him, taking his hand.

"Let's go."

They broke into a run wordlessly when the main entrance was in sight. Thor couldn't help his groan of relief when the door opened easily (or as easily as ever anyway) to them. Then he groaned some more because Loki slammed him against said door once they were safely inside and kissed him.

He was surprised, but he wasn't _shocked_.

He opened his mouth eagerly and pulled Loki closer. Loki seemed to be riding some sort of wave of desperation, but his mouth was smooth and fit well against Thor's. He nipped at Loki's lips enthusiastically and Loki's arms wound around his neck in response. When Loki pulled away after a while, he didn't go far, only exhaling lightly against Thor's cheek.

Thor chuckled as his hands roamed all over Loki's back, eager to dip lower.

"Be very careful what you say right now," Loki drawled, but his tone was amused.

"I just... remembered what you said by the lake, that's all."

Loki pulled back a little more and frowned, searching Thor's face in the light of the flash light that hung discarded from Thor's wrist.

"About what?"

"About not being brothers."

"Oh, that." Loki snorted. "I did not have this in mind."

"Liar."

Loki smacked him and they grinned at each other for a few seconds until reality caught up to them.

"We should probably... get upstairs."

"As good a place as any," Loki shrugged and they locked the entrance behind them. Thor took Loki's hand again and while it was still a defence against getting separated, it felt different. He was conscious of the way Loki's fingers were cold, but his palm was warm. He caught himself rubbing small circles on Loki's skin with his thumb, mapping the soft texture. It felt lovely.

Upstairs, they lit up one more flash light and couple of candles, then carefully combed through Loki's rooms to make sure they were alone and locked up again.

"I don't think we can do anything else right now," Thor concluded, sweeping the light around.

"Tomorrow we should get back to the office and look for more clues," Loki responded, undressing. If Thor said that he was now looking at the bared skin with different eyes, he would be lying to himself. He had been _looking_ before.

"Or, we should get the hell out of here. Even if nothing else was going on, we can't just ignore that there is no power and that your PC pretty much exploded. Someone should look at it."

Loki threw himself on the bed and huffed.

"We can't just _leave_! I told you this before. This is my home. I will not be chased out. If you're oh so scared, then feel free to go!"

"I will not leave you here alone, don't be fucking stupid," Thor flew off.

"Then help me figure this out!"

"Fine, fine... jesus!" Thor raised his hands in defeat and went to bed as well.

The shift of energy in the room was immediate. Thor could hardly recall the sharp words that were just exchanged as he slid under the covers and saw Loki do the same in the corner of his eye.

Desperate not to get stuck in some awkward moment, he rolled onto his side, propping up his head on an elbow and faced Loki. They had two candles on the night stand and under any other circumstances, it would be sickly romantic.

"Are you okay?"

Loki opened his mouth with a sharp intake of breath, giving Thor a glare, but then he exhaled and shrugged, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

"It's a mess. But yeah, mostly."

Thor reached out and touched Loki's hair lightly, smoothing it back, just to test the waters. And well, because he really wanted to know how the dark strands would feel. They were very soft.

"So... a ghost, huh? That changes things," he said lamely. Loki snorted.

"You could say that."

"Why now, though? Why did it appear?"

"Thor, dear," Loki said in mock condescension. "I hate to break it to you, but the only thing that changed here ever since I was born is you."

Thor took offence to that. "What did I do? Pissed it off by reading outside for a couple of days? I say that you made it mad pretending to be a ghost yourself."

He was joking but Loki's face fell and he half-sat up, leaning on his elbows and turning to Thor.

"Shit... do you think that could be it?"

"I... no, not really," he stuttered. To be honest, he wasn't really giving it much thought. His concerns were more of the practical nature.

Loki flopped back on the bed and covered his face. "Shit."

"Don't worry about that," Thor soothed, leaning closer and prying Loki's fingers away from his face. "Hey, look at me."

Loki did, trying to school his features.

"One thing at a time, all right?" Thor whispered and bent down, kissing him.

It was a slower, gentler kiss than before and Thor shivered when his tongue slid over Loki's. He loved the way Loki traced his teeth with the tip before arching up, offering his mouth for Thor to explore.

Thor slid his mouth over Loki's jaw down to his neck and began nipping away on the skin but Loki wrapped his arms around Thor's shoulders, pulling him into a hug and laughed. Thor looked up, amused, but slightly confused.

"I'm sorry... I just - we are all _unsupervised _here and even so, no one would probably suspect this... and instead of taking full advantage of it, we need to deal with a _ghost_. You see the joke?"

"I was well on my way to take advantage before you started giggling," Thor pointed out, smirking, supporting himself on one arm above Loki and sliding the other up and down Loki's side.

"I did not giggle."

"Yes, you did."

"Shut up," Loki ordered and pulled Thor back down. He was bold, pressing his body into Thor's and kissing him hard. Thor shifted his hips so their cocks touched and even through two layers of underwear, it made his blood run fast.

He added this to the pile of things he didn't expect to find at the Grey Rose Cottage.

His hand travelled lightly down the length of Loki's body, slow enough for the other boy to notice and perhaps even have time to object. But then Loki grasped Thor's ass with both hands and squeezed him firmly and Thor knew he didn't need to hesitate. He pulled Loki's underwear down to his thighs and did the same with his own quickly.

Loki let go of Thor's ass with one hand and fisted his cock instead with a firm hand, gasping a bit as he jerked his hips up to prompt Thor to do the same. Thor buried his face in Loki's neck and felt warmth bloom over his cheeks when his fingers scattered curiously over the silky skin of Loki's cock. He'd never really done this before.

Perhaps it was because of all the crazy they've been through together, perhaps it was because of the weird not-brothers status the two of them had, but there was something familiar about Loki. Something that made Thor swallow his trepidation and that let him melt into Loki's embrace with a freely uttered gasp. He wanted to do this right, but he wasn't nervous. Wasn't scared. In fact, he felt like grinning in between moans. It was the oddest feeling and he knew that it had a lot to do with the fluid, intriguing nature of the boy beneath him. Loki was demandingly pulling Thor close, grunting quietly when he particularly enjoyed a stroke of Thor's hand

"Mhmm," Loki gasped and Thor mouthed at his cheek eagerly, sloppily getting to the corner of his mouth and pressing kisses there. They were working their hands rapidly now, matching each other's strokes.

"Fuck," breathed Thor, surging down to bite and suck on Loki's neck while Loki slid a hand into his hair and tugged in encouragement, his strokes never faltering. Nuzzling his neck like that, Thor was overcome with the scent of Loki's skin – mint and honey.

He squeezed his eyelids shut against the surge of arousal but he couldn't stop himself from seizing up and coming all over Loki's hand. Tremors of pleasure ran through him and he breathed heavily through his mouth, unthinkingly mouthing at Loki's collarbone until he was roused from his stupor by Loki's slick hand covering his own and reminding him to move again. He made himself raise his head as he picked up the pace jerking Loki's cock to watch his face. Loki's eyes were closed and his neck was taut, giving Thor the best view of the planes of his face. Then Loki frantically scrambled with both of his hands, looking as if he was searching for something to hold on to and grasped Thor's upper arms for support, digging his nails in when he moaned startlingly loud and came.

They breathed together for a moment.

"Want to take turns holding flash light in the shower?" Loki asked, still a bit out of breath and they collapsed together in a fit of giggles, the absurdity catching up to them. In the end, they more or less did just what Loki suggested. One candle placed on the sink was enough to get them through the motions safely and then they sleepily crawled to bed together. Thor wasn't exactly sure where they stood, but Loki's body warmth was calling to him and he shuffled closer. Loki threw a leg over Thor's calves and tucked his head against Thor's shoulder.

Then he snickered into the dark. "Will you hold it against me when I say I'm too scared to open a window but I really hate the sulphur stink of the candle smoke?"

Thor bit his lip to stifle a laugh. He could recognize a sleepy, filter-free, half-high state when he saw one. He just didn't expect it from Loki.

"For a moment I was really afraid where that sentence was gonna go."

"Ugh," Loki grunted and promptly fell asleep.

* * *

><p>Morning, and consequently daylight, brought some more relief.<p>

Thor watched, still in bed, with arms folded behind his head as Loki opened a window and let the fresh, moist air in. It was foggy out, but Thor was confident it would clear later. Loki threw him a look over his shoulder, smirking, unapologetic about his silly remark the night before.

"Come on, lazy," Loki prompted. "Mystery to solve."

"Sure. But come with me to my room first, I need some fresh clothes."

"Oh, scared, are we?" Loki teased, pulling on a clean shirt.

"No," Thor said as if Loki was the stupidest person in twenty mile radius. "But I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"You have a funny way of putting things."

They walked side by side the short distance between their rooms and slipped into Thor's. Nothing was changed there and Thor realized he was half-expecting it to be thrashed or perhaps with walls covered in creepy writing. It had been two days since he was in. He changed into clean clothes and grabbed his phone, finding the battery dead. Not surprising.

Loki was lying on his bed again while he waited, thumbing through a book. He didn't look much different from the way he did when he had first come here to extend an olive branch. Which turned out to be a pretty rotten stick. Thor could feel his good mood quickly retreating. Not for the first time since he tended to Loki's broken nose he wondered if he was still being played.

"What?" Loki barked, snapping the book shut and frowning at Thor. He had been staring.

"Are you still messing with me?"

Loki looked furious and not the least bit guilty.

"After all that shit, you still think this is a prank? I'm not sure I want a complete _idiot _here with me. That tends to be lethal."

Thor laughed humourlessly. "It's a real fucking wonder how you don't get why I have some goddamn reservations about you."

"Thor, I just did a couple of cheap tricks, okay? It wasn't like..." Loki frustratedly waved his hand about. "It wasn't more complicated than slipping itching powder into your pants. I didn't fry my computer and fall down the stairs to impress you."

Thor chose to believe him for the moment.

Downstairs, they checked the main power fuse box. After switching the fuses off and on again, a light in the hall turned on.

Thor scratched his chin. "I guess we should have done that last night."

Loki wasn't convinced. "Just wait till tonight. It might go off again."

They took advantage of working electricity and made themselves some food. Thor tried to stall a bit, offering to make tea and generally fussing over the kitchen, mopping up water that leaked from the freezer when it was turned off and insisted on getting a charger and plugging in his phone, but Loki ushered him upstairs mercilessly soon after.

All the dust in the old office made Thor sneeze.

A couple of hours later, he had a meagre stack – one of the previous owners dying in an illegal gun duel, an accident when the ball room was renovated that resulted in a death of one of the workers and one report on a young lady going missing, presumably fleeing with her lover.

Loki seemed to have more findings and he was so absorbed in his research that he didn't even notice Thor had stopped working and was watching him. His dark hair was combed back and his brows were furrowed, mouth twitching occasionally as if he had a tendency to read quietly to himself. The bruise spreading from the bridge of his nose to the little half moon of skin under his eyes was dark and purplish now. In a twisted way, it looked like some sort of accessory, emphasizing his pale skin and dark hair.

Thor's feelings for him were a jumbled mess.

Loki had hardly ever been pleasant to him, safe for a couple of hours playing video games (and even those were filled with mock insults and general competitiveness) and then there was of course the nasty argument they had after Thor figured out he was being played. But they'd had good moments too, he reminded himself. The day before, mostly. And to be quite honest, it was not like Thor really _minded_ being on the receiving end of Loki's barbs.

"Does your mum really hate me?"

A binder with newspaper clippings tumbled from Loki's hands and his head whipped up.

"Fuck, you scared me!"

"I'm sitting at the exact same spot as an hour ago."

"Shit... still... What did you-? Oh. Oh, no. I'm... I'm sorry, that was bullshit. She didn't say anything bad about you."

"Okay," Thor said and paused, giving Loki a chance to elaborate on his own. He didn't, fidgeting with the documents instead. "So... you wanna tell me why you prepared the haunted house tour for me then?"

"It was a bit of... precaution, okay? And I don't want to talk about this."

"Precaution to what? That you would hate me?" Thor pressed on.

"Thor, could you please take a second and reflect on the fact that you are spending a lot of time and energy trying to figure out a fake ghost occurrence when we have a very real one on our hands?" Loki told him in a snotty tone and Thor snapped.

"Well maybe I care less about a piece of ectoplasm and more about what goes on in your head, especially when it comes to me!"

Loki's mouth fell open and for a second he looked genuinely perplexed.

"Is this about last night?"

"Well, yeah!" Thor sighed frustratedly. "Among other things."

"Look," Loki adopted a soothing tone. "We're working together, okay? I am not screwing with you. I didn't do anything after I planted the phone. How many times do I have to repeat myself?"

Thor had been weighing this for a while. He knew that Loki wasn't the sole source of everything going on, but that didn't mean he could see the lines clearly.

"Fine, all-right, I believe you!" he said, a bit louder than was probably necessary. "But what about the rest?"

"Really, Thor? You wanna talk feelings?" Loki's mouth was curled in a sneer and he crossed his arms, leaning back to rest against the table leg.

"I just want to know at which point you stopped trying to give me a heart-attack and started thinking about kissing me."

"Hm, let me think. Oh yeah, that would be around the moment I was flying down the stairs, knocked off by an invisible force." Loki emphasized his sarcastic tone by a finger tapping his chin dramatically as he stared at the ceiling in pretence of deep thought. Thor let him be after that, because he knew he was lying. He had changed his mind about Thor _before _that, he could just guess it from the way Loki evaded honest answer. Somehow it was comforting.

Some time later, they compared their notes, without any particular results. Even Loki had to admit that it was one thing to gather suspicious pieces of information from across a couple of centuries and another thing to actually connect them to what was happening in the present.

"It's useless," Loki complained, staring in frustration at his notes. "Any of these people could have, you know," he waved his fingers to illustrate something spooky, "stayed behind."

"Glad you are finally catching up with me," Thor responded sarcastically, getting up to stretch his hurting back.

"Wow. Didn't peg you for the 'told you so' type," Loki said coldly, looking down and Thor wondered whether he actually hurt him with that comment.

"Hey," he nudged Loki gently. "Have a break, come on."

Loki huffed but climbed to his feet anyway, groaning as he straightened. The corner of Thor's mouth twitched in a smile and he crowded Loki against the desk.

"Oh," Loki poked at Thor's chest. "A break, huh?"

Thor shrugged innocently and leaned in for a kiss. Loki settled on the desk, drawing Thor to stand between his knees and they spent a couple of minutes exploring their mouths lazily. Thor almost moaned when Loki licked the corner of his mouth playfully and gave him a sly look from beneath his eyelashes. He got his revenge by sucking at Loki's earlobe soon after. He liked the sounds Loki made.

It was a short respite though, no matter how lovely. The day progressed silently and the heavy atmosphere was getting worse every hour. Around four in the afternoon, Thor insisted they go downstairs and eat. Loki didn't even put up much of a fight.

Their nerves were on edge from anticipation.

"Where do you think we should go when it gets dark?" Thor asked between mouthfuls of instant soup.

"I wish I knew. I thought about staying downstairs but... "

Thor put down his spoon, choked with frustration that was only fuelled by his fear.

"This is ridiculous. We are like prisoners here."

This was bound to only go downhill as Loki made it clear before what he thought about leaving the Cottage.

"I-" he paused. "Do you hear that?"

After spending the day in an oppressive quiet of the house, it wasn't hard to pick up on the sound.

"Horses?"

"Sounds like it," Loki nodded. "Let's check it out."

The clucking of horse hooves was coming from the front of the house and the boys curiously made their way there.

"You said your neighbours had horses? Do they visit you sometimes?"

"Never on horseback," Loki murmured nervously and opened the doors.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Thor breathed out. The front of the house – the stairs, the pebbled entry way, the entire road leading to the house, as far as they could see – was completely empty. Nobody was there, not a single person and most certainly not horses. And yet, they could still hear snorting and the rhythmic thumping of horses trotting. The noise receded slowly as they stood there together, rooted to the spot with shock.

Thor wrapped his arm around Loki's waist, realizing they were standing on a threshold and that had proven dangerous before.

"Come on," he whispered. "Better get inside."

It was not going to be a good night.

* * *

><p><em>Hovering uncertainly on the threshold stood a young boy, no older than twelve. He chewed on his thumb and jumped guiltily when he realized what he was doing. He put his hand down rapidly and looked around, but no one was paying him any attention. His Mother and Father were both talking to his brother, who beamed at them proudly from the saddle of his horse, smoothing down the collar of his brand new red coat.<em>

"_Adrian! Come say goodbye!" _

_He couldn't disobey his Mother and so he shuffled slowly towards the gathering. More boys – more men – were leaving as well. He didn't like the horses. They were smelly and could kick and bite. _

"_Adrian!" his brother called out. "Will you not congratulate me?"_

"_Of course, William," he choked out quietly. "Congratulations on going to war."_

_His Father cuffed him on the ear._

"_Stupid boy. Your brother is gaining a most excellent employment. Do not talk about it so crudely. We should all be proud."_

"_But he is!" Adrian cried. "He is going to war!"_

_William vaulted off the horse, his shiny boots splashing the mud about. He grasped his little brother's shoulders gently and pulled him away from their parents, leaning to speak quietly to him._

"_Adrian, brother. You must not weep. The position of an army officer is an honourable one. I will be serving the King. Do you not think that's important?"_

"_But I do not want you to leave me."_

"_I will come back. I promise."_


	5. Chapter 5

Thor woke up alone.

Considering that he had been doing that for most of his life, it was almost comical how much the fact startled him.

Almost.

"Loki?!" he yelled immediately. He didn't care if he was merely on the loo or something, he shouldn't have been that careless.

No response.

"Shit, shit, shit," he murmured, throwing clothes on as quickly as possible.

"Loki!" he screamed once out on the hallway and listened for any reply. Nothing.

"Son of a bitch, where are you?"

He ran up the stairs to the second floor, thinking that maybe Loki was stupid enough to continue the research alone, but the office was empty. Thor realized he was shaking and his vision was clouding with something he startlingly found out were tears.

He had to fight hard to get a grip on himself to even think about where he should look next. Panic was making his mind go blank while his body was strung up, ready to run, except he didn't know where. He decided on downstairs, calming himself with deep breaths, but as soon as he stepped down, he couldn't help a panicked sob escaping his throat when he remembered how fucking huge the house was. Loki wasn't in the kitchen or in any of the stupid drawing rooms and ball rooms and god-knows-what-else rooms. He had half a mind to go upstairs again when a flash of instinct reminded him to check the grounds as well. He peeked out from the French doors to the garden (which had no business looking as beautiful as it did when there was a murderous ghost roaming free and snatching his... well he couldn't really say what Loki was to him.), but it was empty and his calls remained unanswered. He strode to the main entrance anyway, realizing that maybe he should have checked that first. They'd heard the phantom horses there after all.

He threw himself at the heavy door, fumbling at the lock and door handle. It took him several seconds to realize that the reason the key wasn't turning was because it was already unlocked. Fuck.

He found him. But that was about the end of the good news.

Loki was lying on the ground under the stairs, curled in a ball and didn't respond to Thor's choked-out cry. He was still in the boxers and t-shirt he wore to bed the previous night and the thin clothing was soaked through with dew. Thor shot down the stairs, landing on his knees beside Loki's still form and for a moment froze there with hands hovering over Loki, unsure what to do as to not make things worse. In the end, he simply lowered his face to Loki's and almost fainted in relief when warm breath washed over him.

"Loki," he said softly, touching his cheek. Loki's skin was cold and clammy and Thor couldn't resist moving his hand under Loki's nose to feel the breath coming out steadily again.

"Loki," he tried with more force, shaking him by the shoulder very gently.

Then Loki almost knocked him to the ground as he sprung up with a scream.

"Wha-?!"

The sight of him sitting up was no better than when he was balled on the ground. For the first time, Thor noticed that there was actually blood on his t-shirt, mostly at the front and some at the collar.

"Thor, what the fuck? Where-" Loki panted, looking around in terror and then succumbing to a fit of violent coughing. When he was able to breathe again, he spit on the ground, colouring the white pebbles with pink tinge. Blood.

Shit shit shit.

Thor reached out to take Loki's hands in his own, getting his attention wordlessly.

Loki just shook his head at him, eyes wide. Thor took it to meant he had no idea what happened. He had a thousand questions and curses and sentiments on his tongue, but he tried to hold them back.

"Can you stand?"

Loki didn't reply, but instead leaned into Thor for support and got up on wobbly feet. That's when Thor noticed two things – first, apart from the blood, Loki was stained with dark blue liquid as well and second, there were crumbled papers on the ground where Loki had lain. He must have been covering them with his body. Thor picked them up and then pulled Loki's arm around his neck and supported him to the house.

With a detached sort of reasoning, he nudged open a door to the drawing room because he remembered that a sofa was there. He didn't however mean to deposit Loki on it, he merely wanted to grab a blanket he knew was folded neatly at the corner of it. The image popped up in his brain as clearly as if he was a machine. That was step one. Step two was the kitchen. He sat Loki down on a chair, wrapping the blanket carefully around him. Step three was something hot to drink.

Then he all but crumbled.

With the kettle on, he could just kneel in front of Loki and kiss his forehead, yelling at himself inwardly to keep it together because he wasn't the one this was about.

"What do you remember?" he asked, voice cracking. He looked away and coughed to cover it.

"I went to take a piss in the middle of the night. That's all I know."

Thor reserved a moment to think about how stupid they were to regard Loki's rooms as a sanctuary.

He pulled out the damp papers he had picked up outside.

"You had these with you," he told Loki because he was looking at Thor's findings with a bewildered expression.

"That's my hand-writing," he said, rummaging through the pages. "More or less."

Thor turned away to pour the boiling water over tea leaves to hide his expression from Loki.

"Thor."

He didn't want to look at Loki. Not now. Not after hearing that tone.

"Thor. Thor, this is... you need to read this."

"Yeah... yeah, we will figure it out, okay?" He steeled himself and looked Loki in the eyes. "But first we need to take care of you."

In the next seconds, he had to re-run what he had just said in his mind to make sure there wasn't anything weird about it because Loki was watching him with an extremely wary expression.

When he said nothing, Thor tried to gently push his point. "You have- You were bleeding. And you are cold."

Loki stilled looking up at Thor uncertainly and the paper in his hands began trembling gently. Thor was by him in two long strides and took them away.

"You don't need to worry about this right now."

He pocketed the pages quickly and stroked Loki's arm.

"You are completely out of it."

Loki looked up at him and then his gaze swept around the whole room. He nodded.

"Yeah."

Thor just wanted to go bang his head against the wall in the next second because Loki's face crumpled (and he could tell how hard he had been fighting it) and tears spilled over his cheeks.

"Hey, hey," Thor whispered going to his knees in front of Loki again and pulling him against his chest. "It's okay. You are okay."

Loki was shaking wordlessly and Thor cursed everything and mainly himself for not being sure what to do.

"You're okay now. I'm here," he soothed senselessly. He would be willing to just hold Loki indefinitely like that, but even in his desperation, his brain reached for solutions and it very quickly occurred to him that Loki was still soaked through and freezing and no simple blanket could help that. He could fix that. At least that.

He disentangled himself and grabbed the steaming mug of tea before pulling Loki to his feet.

"Come on."

Loki followed him wordlessly all the way to the first floor, staring at the ground and not resisting Thor's jostling and manoeuvring. That was worrying. At the top of the stairs, Thor decided to turn left to his room instead of right to Loki's. It was probably completely inconsequential as whatever it was that was coming after them clearly had access to all parts of the house, but at least Loki hadn't been... snatched from Thor's room.

Inside, he put the mug down on bedside table and led Loki to the bathroom.

The bathroom connected to his room was done from floor to ceiling in an old style, with flower tiles, tall toilet and a bathtub on legs, but the plumbing was reliable and the light bulbs shone brightly.

He stood Loki in the middle of it and started taking off his wet t-shirt.

"I can do it," Loki murmured with a grain of his usual temper and Thor smiled sadly, letting him pull the bloodied, stained garment off. He unhooked the shower hose and brought it down, setting the spray strong and hot, waiting for Loki to get his boxers off and climb in.

Loki sat down in the tub gingerly and Thor knelt on a towel next to it, bringing the shower head in circles over Loki's skin. There were no visible marks anywhere on his body and his chest was merely tinged with flakes of red and brown where some of the blood seeped through the fabric.

_He was coughing the blood up, _Thor figured out and kept his observation to himself.

"Warm enough?" he asked instead, gesturing to the spray.

Loki just nodded, hugging his knees and resting his chin on his knees. That's when he winced and his hand flew up to touch the back of his neck.

"Does it hurt?" Thor asked, alarmed.

Loki nodded, apparently coming back a bit to reality. Probably result of having warmed up.

Thor handed the shower hose to him and leaned back to see the straight knobs of Loki's spine. There was a bruise just peeking out from his hairline. Thor brushed the long strands of hair away and tried to very gently feel the spot.

"Ow," Loki hissed.

"Sorry," Thor apologized in a hushed murmur. He cupped a handful of water and poured it over Loki's hair and then slid his wet fingers through it, watching very carefully for any red or pink washing out. The water was clear.

"Well, I don't think you broke the skin. But you have a solid bump and a bruise."

Loki said nothing and Thor bit his tongue to stop an influx of unimportant observations and question that threatened to spill. Loki needed to rest and to calm down.

He was holding the shower head limply in his fingers, spraying only his left leg for long minutes and so Thor pried it from him and returned to the soothing circle of warming him up.

Then he reached over and put a plug into the drain, his hands brushing Loki's toes lightly.

They watched together as the water rose up slightly until Thor shut off the stream.

The silence had a gradually awakening impact on Loki.

"Thanks," he murmured. "I'm like a fucking baby."

"Please," Thor scoffed, but tried to keep his voice quiet. His fingers dipped into the warm water, swirling patterns over Loki's back. "Don't even mention it. It's- you need help, I'm here, okay?"

"'S just an excuse to get me naked, I am onto you," Loki joked weakly and Thor laughed warmly at that.

"Yes, that too. Now that I think about it, my next step is getting you into my bed."

"Consider me wooed."

Loki stayed in the cooling water for a while longer and Thor sat by him, listening to the occasional splash, often turning his head to look through the open doors into his room. It was fully light out, sun making an appearance occasionally. It was bizarre. He felt like he had been awake all night, like he had just seen the sun come up and one day rolled into another. Like it was mere minutes since he and Loki spent an evening in silence, sitting on the couch together, each reading their own book after their conversation about what was happening in the Grey Rose Cottage completely fell apart and threatened to turn into a yelling match. They had both stopped in mutual agreement, preferring to be quiet instead. They had gone to bed early, lying close, but not touching. Thor thought that was a shame. Perhaps if they had been cuddled together, he would have woken when Loki got out of bed.

Loki pulled the plug out wordlessly and watched the water spiral and lower for a while before he got up. Thor readied a towel for him and crowded him carefully in case he started to fall.

"I'm gonna give you something of mine to wear," he said just to get them talking again. Loki wrapped the towel around himself and wandered into the room watching Thor rummage through his drawers and pull out some t-shirt and boxers.

Loki pulled on the shirt first, which Thor found a bit weird (in some small, unoccupied part of his mind that wasn't too busy being freaked out and scared and coming up with options of how to get out of this mess), but it turned out Loki was too shaky to stand on one foot and put the underwear on. Thor caught him and sat him on the bed, kneeling in front of him and lifting first one, then other slim ankle and dragged the fabric all the way up until Loki lifted his hips and slipped the boxers into place. Thor smiled at him and kissed both of his knees, earning himself a small giggle. He could melt from the sound alone.

"Come on," he ushered Loki until he was under the covers, head on pillow. He looked pale and drained and decidedly anguished. Thor seated himself comfortably at his side and entwined their fingers together. Loki actually brought his other hand over their connected ones and shuffled to his side, holding Thor's hand to his chest, curling in on himself.

Thor suspected he was going to cry or sleep, or maybe both. He thought it was a reasonable reaction.

Instead, Loki spoke up.

"My theory," he started and paused again, sighing. "My theory is that it tripped me in the bathroom and possessed me when I was knocked out. Then it spent the night in me, writing all those letters."

Thor was barely getting over his surprise that Loki wanted to do this _now _and that he had already formulated some ideas when Loki continued.

"We're going to be able to figure this out." His voice was getting stronger even as he clutched Thor's hand in his harder. "The letters... there are names and everything. We will know who it is."

Thor looked over to the crumpled mess of papers that he had dropped along with the mug. "They're letters?" he frowned.

"Yeah," Loki nodded as if it was obvious.

"Okay, okay... here, drink your tea. It's still warm."

Later Thor would wonder about his unwillingness to discuss Loki's findings. He simply knew something was off. He thought he merely tried to be the responsible one in the face of Loki's acute stubbornness (he would run himself ragged trying to solve the mystery), but there was something else to it. He couldn't shake the feeling that nothing good could come out of poking into this.

Loki however obeyed, sitting up and gulping the tea. Meanwhile, Thor formulated a plan. He took the mug away when Loki was done and pushed him gently back into the pillows, tucking him in.

"I will stay with you until you fall asleep and then I will read these, what do you say? So when you wake up, we can go through it together."

"Good," Loki murmured, his eyelids dropping.

Thor stayed on the bed for almost an hour, watching Loki breathe. It seemed that exhaustion held any bad dreams at bay. He was completely peaceful. Thor very carefully slid off the bed and then, just to be sure, stood for a minute or two by it to see if Loki was disturbed by the mattress moving. He wasn't.

Thor turned to put his plan into motion, but hesitated, his eyes catching on the letters. Perhaps he should just peek at them anyway. Considering what state Loki was in, it was silly to simply take his word for anything. And so he took them and made himself comfortable in the window seat, glad for the daylight.

He couldn't read most of it. The ink was smudged and had seeped through the paper and even the parts that were better off were hastily scrambled and unreadable. There were parts he could decipher though, mainly the greetings and the signature – they were almost the same on each letter.

They were addressed to "Dearest William" or "Beloved Brother" and signed as "Yours faithfully, Adrian" or "With best love, Your Brother."

Intrigued, and not just a bit apprehensive, he searched for more.

… _last night's company was very pleasant and Ms. Robin's served four courses... _

… _Mother has discouraged me... I suffer the lack of your letters, Brother... _

… _a travelling merchant visited us last week... pocket watch... news from the..._

… _Father has invited his old friend Mr. Crafton and we are very happy to accompany..._

… _received no news... allowance in case you suffer lack of funds for the postal office..._

… _name in the newspapers today, but Brother, I cannot believe it..._

… _you promised you would return..._

Thor'd had enough. He put the papers away with a scowl and rubbed his eyes to compose himself before getting up.

His phone was charged. There were some unread texts from his friends, but those could wait.

He pressed 999 with sure fingers and put the phone to his ear.

"What is your emergency?" a pleasant voice on the other side asked.

"Hello, yes. My name is Thor Odinson. I'm calling from the Keswick area...ehm... Maslake Wood, the Grey Rose Cottage?" he said, with a hint of question, praying she had the means to look their location up. He didn't know the exact the address. He could hear her typing.

"Yes sir, what is the problem then?"

"It's my brother, he hit his head and is acting confused... he coughed up blood."

"And your brother's name is-?"

"Loki Laufeyson. I- we... we're alone here, our parents are on honeymoon and the caretaker is in the hospital."

"I will be dispatching an ambulance immediately. Where is your brother now?"

"He's sleeping. I'm in the room with him."

"Good, that's good. It's important to watch his breathing and-"

He didn't learn what else was important because the phone was pried from his fingers and hurled across the room.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Loki shrieked. Thor almost jumped out of his skin. He never heard Loki get up and move so close. He was crowded against the wall and Loki pushed him hard. Thor's teeth clicked as his head hit the wall.

"What?! Calm the fuck-"

The shout died in his throat because Loki was standing right in his space, crowding him aggressively, his chin up as he pulled himself to full height and stared at him with a furious expression, his eyes wild and round. His pupils were blown.

In that moment, Thor was genuinely scared of him. That quickly changed into being scared _for _him and he found his voice again.

"Loki, calm down." He tried to catch Loki's arms gently, but was shaken off violently. Loki said nothing and his gaze slowly slid from Thor's face to the wall behind him.

"Loki, fuck, just tell me it's you in there," he begged, clasping his hand gently on Loki's shoulder and stroking his pulse with a thumb. It was racing under his touch.

Then Loki wavered on his feet and Thor had to catch him.

"Thor?"

"Come on, come here... let's sit."

Loki pulled at his hair and lowered his head down to his knees. "What the fuck was that?"

"What do you remember? Do you remember getting up and taking the phone from me?"

"Yeah!" Loki's voice was muffled as he still pressed his head down. "But I don't know- I don't know why I was so angry."

Thor laughed humourlessly. "Let me guess. You were mad at your big brother for doing something behind your back and for wanting to leave this house."

Loki straightened so quickly he looked a bit dizzy.

"How did you know that?"

"I read the letters. From what I could get, this dude's... this _Adrian's_ brother went somewhere and never came back."

"To war, I think. I think he was a soldier."

Thor wrapped his arms tightly around Loki.

"So you felt his anger? Like he was still... around?"

"_In me_, you can say it. Like I was still possessed. Yeah. A little. But I could get... I could fight it."

"Okay," he murmured, squeezing Loki lightly and giving him a peck on the cheek. "It's all-right- We will just wait."

Loki nodded against Thor's chest. Then he raised his head and gave Thor a tired smile. His eyes glimmered a bit despite being bloodshot.

"I have an idea."

"What's that?"

Slowly, but determinedly, Loki climbed onto Thor's lap and gave him a long, lingering kiss. Thor chuckled into his warm mouth.

"Do you want the paramedics to find us like this?"

"They won't be here for another hour. I think we need to show _somebody _what we think about all this family drama."

It was reckless and stupid.

They did it anyway. Mindful of his state, Thor laid Loki onto his back and kissed him long and thoroughly, until Loki was voicing his complaints with little moans and his hands wouldn't stop tugging on Thor's shirt.

Thor took it off to appease him, but he had his own plans. He hiked up Loki's shirt to lick and suck at his nipples until they were wet with his spit and hard from the treatment. He left a wet trail of licks and kisses all over Loki's front until he was sliding off the bed to lean over between Loki's legs. His head was spinning with excitement and trepidation. It was almost too much – waiting for something horrible (like, say, a ghost appearance or sirens wailing) to happen while at the same time being determined to focus and do this right.

He nuzzled at the growing hardness through the fabric and laughed when Loki began panting. Mercifully, he pulled the boxers down and stroked Loki, shooting a glance up the bed to see what he was doing. The answer turned out to be biting his lip and squeezing his eyes shut. Okay then.

He ran his tongue in circles over the head of Loki's cock, stroking him through it. He stopped momentarily to watch his foreskin run up and down and leaned in experimentally, trying to see what his tongue could do. He thought he was being a bit clumsy and so it calmed him when Loki swore out loud and thrust his hips up. He must have done something right. He sucked lightly at the head, his palm that was wrapped around the root getting wet with saliva. He tried to spread it along the whole length first and then dove in, taking in as much of Loki's cock as he could. It took some adjusting, but he found a rhythm and stuck to it, casting glances upwards often to see Loki's reaction. He was never disappointed. Loki looked wrecked, but for once, it was in a good way.

Thor was very happy where he was as well. He loved the undeniable presence in his mouth, heavy and hot. It was like a race. Thor liked racing.

"Thor! Hnghh-"

He almost decided to pull off, but he didn't make it before Loki was spurting come into his mouth. He simply stayed where he was, waiting for the rest and then swallowed it down, coughing softly. He found something better to taste on Loki's inner thigh while he was catching his breath.

"All-right?" he asked with a smile and climbed over Loki, hovering above him on all fours.

Loki giggled. "Fuck, that was crazy."

"Your idea. Let's get dressed and wait for the ambulance."

Loki's smile fell but he didn't argue.

Feeling as if they'd already won, they ventured first into Loki's room so that he could put on some warmer clothes and grab some basics and then went downstairs, opening the main entrance doors so that they could hear the ambulance coming and sat down in the drawing room.

Cuddled together on the couch, Loki's fingers strayed to Thor's belt and he offered him at least a handjob in return. Thor laughed and refused, saying that they were almost out of time and he didn't want to greet the medics with a boner. Loki huffed and laid his head on Thor's shoulder. Despite the improvement in their moods, he was still tired.

Minutes trickled.

"You could have come twice by now," Loki murmured, tone unreadable.

"Where the hell are they? Do you think that because we cut the call..."

Loki shrugged. "It shouldn't be like that."

Tired of waiting and fidgety, Thor jumped from his seat.

"Give me your phone."

Loki reached into his pocket and wordlessly handed it to Thor. The battery was almost dead, so he hurried and pressed the numbers.

He was met with a high-pitched, uninterrupted dial tone.

"Okay," he said flatly, staring at the display. No need to panic. Not yet. "Come with me to the kitchen, we will try the home line."

Loki lifted himself heavily from the sofa and Thor caught his hand.

It was not a long way to the kitchen – through one hallway, into a sort of open sitting area with French doors and then they would be there. Perhaps Thor's instincts were honed by the previous couple of days, perhaps the spirit was getting stronger and its presence was becoming physically detectable, but whatever the reason was, Thor knew something was going down seconds before it happened.

His mouth dropped opened and he wanted to yell – call a warning to Loki, or maybe just voice his fear, but it was too late.

Loki made a horribly loud choking, wheezing sound and wrenched his hand from Thor's grasp. Both of his arms then flew up to his neck and he circled it, eyes wide, still making those terrible sounds. Thor shook all over, struck with a surge of panic again.

"Loki! What-"

Loki turned away from him and ran, straight for the doors and tore them open, stumbling out onto the patio, narrowly missing a clutter of chairs that were stacked there. Thor rushed after him thoughtlessly.

He caught up with Loki on the last step of stairs leading to the garden and somehow they both collapsed onto the grass. Loki let go of his neck and was taking deep, but dangerously quick breaths.

"What was that?!"

"I couldn't breathe. I just... I was choking. I had to- I was sure it would be better outside."

"Loki, we need to get the fuck out of here right now!" Thor urged, leaning to look Loki in the eye. "I can try... driving, I know the theory... There is some other car in the garage, yeah? Or... or we will walk. Go to your neighbours. Fucking _anywhere_."

He was sure Loki would agree – he had been waiting for the ambulance without complaints after all.

And he did, he made a half nod with his head before his eyes rounded and he pointed a shaky finger at Thor's chest.

"You're bleeding," Loki shrieked.

Thor's vision went black.


	6. Chapter 6

He floated in a dream-like state, not feeling or thinking anything, just sort of being. He couldn't say how long it took, hours, days, perhaps but after a time something jolted him, a little pinch of awareness and he began the long climb towards waking. He had to fight hard not to fall back, even if he couldn't really remember why he should resist the sleepiness and what it was he needed to wake for.

The physical sensations returned first – a warm, but a little itchy feeling engulfed his upper body. His legs were tingling, like the limbs had fallen asleep. Then there were the smells – comforting fragrance of soft wool, the unmistakable aroma of cardamom and something lighter on top of it, sweeter, but still sharp.

And lastly, there was a gentle hand stroking his hair.

With an effort, he finally opened his eyes.

He already knew Loki was with him. It took him a while longer to realize where they were. For some reason, they were sitting on the ground. He looked around and spotted the kitchen entrance and the French doors leading to the back garden. They weren't far then, merely in the sitting room. He wasn't wearing a shirt, but instead he was wrapped in a thick blanket, propped against a wall with Loki shielding him from one side, his one arm thrown around Thor's waist, the other combing his hair. He knew that too.

It was dark outside.

He took a deep breath, remembering the last minutes before he... what? Fainted? With a stab of fear, he looked down at his chest. As far as he could see, he wasn't injured, but there were smudges on his skin. Blood. He filled his lungs deeply and grimaced. His ribs were sore.

"Thor? It better be you."

_Was I possessed?_ Loki sounded drained.

"Yeah."

"Prove it."

"I... umm. I think it's your turn to suck me off."

Loki gave in to a fit of sobbing chuckles and pressed himself against Thor's side more firmly, hiding his face in Thor's neck.

"I'm convinced."

Somewhere down the hallway, a crash resonated. Then a painting fell down from the wall – Thor could just see it through the open door frame. He thought his heart might hammer out of his chest but next to him, Loki only sighed, still relaxed.

"He's been doing that the whole afternoon. It's getting kind of annoying."

"Annoying?! It's getting _annoying_?! It can kill us!"

"Well, that's just it, he can't. That's why he's shredding the décor."

Thor turned to stare at Loki questioningly.

"See?" Loki pointed a couple of feet in front of himself and then towards all the entrances – the kitchen door, the hallway door, the French windows. Thor squinted his eyes; some lamps were on in the door, but it was still on the dim side.

A curved line, a quarter-ring really, of pearly white separated them from the rest of the room. The same cusps of white were on all the thresholds. Thor didn't understand.

"It's salt," Loki said simply. "It keeps him out."

"How did you figure that out?" Thor asked, completely flabbergasted.

"It was on one of those sensational ghosts websites. I was running out of options, so I tried it."

"What happened anyway?"

Loki shuffled uncomfortably.

"You passed out. I dragged you in."

Silence.

"And?" Thor prompted impatiently.

"Jesus, Thor... what's there to tell? I panicked a bit, then the salt idea came to me, I made camp. That's it. We even have tea. Here. Drink up."

Thor took a sip of cold Earl Grey. "You know, I used the tea deflection on you this morning. I can see right through it."

Loki ignored him, looking at the ceiling stubbornly.

Thor gave it a moment, draining the cup and stretching his limbs a little.

"Okay. Out with it," he told Loki firmly.

"How about we talk about what we are going to do to get out of this mess, hm?"

"Yeah. Great idea. But for that I kind of need to know everything it can do, so how about you spill what really happened?"

"I _told_ you what happened."

"Humour me. What about the blood?"

"Well, your shirt was drenched, but as far as I could tell, it didn't come from you."

Thor let his head fall against the wall with a _thud_. He remembered his own fear and panic when he found Loki unconscious on the ground. He realized Loki wasn't hiding anything substantial from him, only that he was unwilling to describe how exactly freaked out he had been with bloodied, fainted Thor on his hands and a ghost running amok.

Thor slid a hand down his chest, feeling for any hurt. There were two points that seemed more sore that the rest, like small bruises. Loki took interest in this, leaning forward to see better, pushing the blanket further back on Thor's shoulders.

"You alright?"

"Just trying to figure it out," Thor shrugged.

"I think..." Loki hesitated. "I think you were... shot."

"Shot?" Thor boggled at him.

"Well, not for real, obviously. But you know... phantom shot. Like William had been."

Something shattered in the kitchen. It was so raucous Thor guessed it was an entire shelf of glasses falling to the ground. He winced.

"This is so fucked up."

"How about you leave us alone, you nasty fucker!" Loki yelled so suddenly that Thor was startled even more than before. Then he just laughed miserably, wrapping his arms around Loki.

"Calm down."

"I don't want to calm down! This idiot thinks he can re-enact his stupid life through us? Well guess what!" Loki's last sentence was louder again and he turned away from Thor to shout into the room. "Thor's not my brother! He sucked my dick this morning!"

"Oh my god, stop," Thor was giggling, but he was still worried.

"And it was awesome!"

Then it was quiet, the silence only disturbed by Thor's forced chuckles. But nothing broke, which was interesting. Thor wondered if Loki was maybe onto something.

He nuzzled Loki's cheek. "That was a round-about way of complimenting me."

Loki gave him a deep kiss then, rushing at first, his tongue plunging into Thor's mouth assertively, but then he slowed down and sighed into it. Thor cupped his cheek and tilted his face to a better angle, lapping at the daring tongue with his own. They parted with a series of parting pecks, surging back again and again, unwilling to really pull apart.

"Okay, okay," he breathed against Loki's lips, his hands sliding down to his shoulders to put a little bit of distance between them. "Now. Plan of escape."

"Spoil-sport."

"Is there a chance of _any_ phones working?"

"Nope."

"We could try the car."

Loki considered this, but then shook his head. "He's gotten pretty good at messing with objects. He can easily sabotage a car I think."

The only other thing Thor could think of was simply making a run for it, but it was so desperate and dangerous he kept it to himself. Their conversation subsided again and he stared off to space.

With the constant action and danger it was odd to just stop and think. Odd and not particularly pleasant. They were cornered by a blood thirsty spirit, all alone in the middle of nowhere. He thought self-deprecatingly that he would have to have a stern talk with his father about this whole marriage idea. If they ever got out of there.

* * *

><p><em>The room was dark and Adrian reached clumsily for a cup to moisten his throat. No one was there to assist him, but that was not unexpected. His illness was but the last bout of suffering that fell on his family.<em>

_Even he didn't deem it terribly important._

_His linens were covered with tiny droplets of drying blood. He must have been coughing in his sleep. Well. That was to be expected._

_He put the cup back on the table and his hand slid over a stack of papers._

_His two last letters were returned with the incomprehensible, impossible words "addressee deceased" scrawled on them in red ink. A package followed then, from the army – clothes, some letters that were actually delivered, personal objects. Adrian recognized every single one of them, except maybe for a craftily made flask. Something that William had purchased for himself after he left home. Adrian was now old enough to know that many men used liquor to drown their sorrows. It was unbearable to think that his brother had resorted to such in the last years of his life._

_Had he the strength, he might have gotten up and opened a chest at the foot of his bed and gone through these reminders again. Instead, the cough seized him again and after the fit subsided, he could only fall back into the pillows and let exhausted sleep claim him._

* * *

><p>Two hours later (under, apart from other things, the unpronounced threat of no food, no water and no <em>facilities<em>) they changed their minds about trying to take the car and leave.

Their plan was construed in a whisper that was barely anything above breathing. They pressed their lips to each other's ears, sending carefully articulated wisps of warm air to the attentive shells. They didn't know of course it if was any good. But time for whooping and tough talk was over.

Thor could see Loki was still tired and shaken and he himself wasn't much better off. The possession and re-living of past horrors left them both drained.

The ghost was quiet, but very obviously still around. Thor could feel the oppressive presence. It was almost familiar by now and he found himself thinking if he had been feeling it from the very beginning and had written it off as a result of the age of the house and the nature surrounding it.

He would think twice next time before dismissing his instincts.

They sat for a couple of minutes, Thor's arm inconspicuously wrapped around Loki's hips, hidden by the blanket he was still bundled in. Then, at Thor's signal – three quick taps against Loki's skin with his finger – they rose as one man, each grabbed a handful of the salt that separated them from the rest of the room, entwined their fingers and ran. The blanket slipped from Thor's shoulders and he shivered a bit.

Loki was in the lead so that they would unmistakably aim for the garage. Thor's head was pounding, partly from the sprinting after sitting down for so long, but mostly from excitement and fear. But it felt good. It felt good to be moving, to be _trying_.

Down the hallway they went, quick and determined, feet thumping loudly on the old carpet. Loki stumbled once and Thor was so startled he wasted half of his meagre salt ration when he threw his arm up, trying to dispense a few grains into the air to, in theory, banish the ghost. Nothing happened – for better or for worse – and they continued their scramble.

Their first obstacle was the garage door. It was hopelessly locked. Loki rattled the door handle desperately, but it wouldn't budge. Thor bumped into him to get him out of the way and tried it as well, putting his entire weight into the door, praying it would give in.

They both jumped, startled, when booming blasts came from inside. Four of them. Like gun shots.

"The tires," Loki groaned and Thor closed his eyes for a moment in understanding.

They froze where they were, eyes scanning their surroundings in panic. They were cornered. Exposed. Thor's heart was beating in a painful staccato. He could actually _feel _each beat hammering against his rib cage.

He drew Loki close to him and they curled themselves together almost unconsciously by the garage door.

"What now?" Loki murmured.

The silence surrounding them had a distinct sense of doom to it.

"Let's try and get out," Thor murmured, trying to figure out where the closest doors outside were. Loki grabbed him and broke into a run again, back down the hallway they have come in through.

He was lucky he hadn't been watching his feet or Loki at the next moment. The entrance hall opened in front of them and they rushed there, hoping to cross it. Thor was looking straight forward, his gaze trained on the huge entrance door when there was a smudge of movement. He dug his heels in so hard he almost slipped on the rich carpet and yanked Loki towards himself, just barely stopping him from being hit by a statue falling from its pedestal.

"Fuck," Loki yelped, wavering on his feet. They have both lost their balance, but Thor knew hesitation could cost them everything. His fingers were in a steel grip around Loki's wrist and he jumped over the marble figure, focused on their destination.

They got to the door and the house fell quiet, no shattering sounds, no new traps. Thor tried opening it with a sinking feeling. It wouldn't give.

They were trapped.

Thor looked at Loki who returned the gaze. He was scared, but he was also growing more and more angry. Determined. The gloves were off. Loki's eyes were sparkling and his jaw was set and Thor could imagine that similar thoughts were running through the other boy's mind.

An idea came to him and he wasted no time thinking about it further or explaining himself to Loki, pulling him wordlessly along. They got back to the sitting room and Thor let go of Loki's hand, grabbing a heavy wooden chair from the table.

"I hope the house is insured," he smirked at Loki as a way of giving himself some courage, strode towards the French doors in three reassured steps and flung the chair, hard.

It crashed right through and glass shattered and exploded everywhere. Thor had good aim – the chair had completely emptied out an entire panel of glass, floor to top. The edges were still jagged and there were sharp pieces of glass all along the way, but it worked. They could get through.

Thor let out a little whoop, muscles flexing excitedly with the strain of throwing the heavy chair and he started towards the hole, eager to finally get out. Loki's warning cry reached him barely in time.

The chair, laying cracked on the patio lit on fire. And so did all the curtains and drapes in the room. The flames spread unnaturally, flaring high and hot from floor to ceiling. In mere seconds the flame ran along the carpet as if it was drenched in flammables and Thor was hit in the face with a gust of scorching hot air. He reeled back, almost falling and then there were Loki's hand, grasping his shoulders, pulling him to safety. It barely took a minute for the entire room to start burning.

Clouds of hot smoke were rolling towards them, filling the hallway.

"Come on, upstairs, upstairs!" Loki yelled and scrambled to steer Thor in the right direction. Thor's mind couldn't process the idea at that very moment and he simply followed, nose already itching from the smoke. Loki had an arm thrown over his face to breathe through the fabric of his sleeve, but that was a luxury denied to Thor. He still didn't know what Loki's plan was, but he was moving incredibly fast, jumping the stairs three at a time when they finally got to the foot of the staircase.

"Your room, now!"

Upstairs, it was still cool and the air clear, but the insistently growing humming of the fire downstairs told them it would not last much longer. They could hear the burning furniture crackling and the overheated air puffing and exploding.

"Why?" called Thor after Loki who was already darting down the hallway.

"Move!" Loki just shouted, not even turning around. Inside, it was oddly warm and it didn't smell quite as clear anymore – the floor was heating up from the fire down below.

"Get dressed," Loki told him, weirdly standing in the middle of the room, doing nothing.

"What? Are you-" he stared at Loki, worried. He didn't have a shirt on, that was true, but that was hardly a priority. But he figured they would get moving sooner if he just did it and he threw on a t-shirt and pulled two hoodies out, stuffing one on despite the warmth and giving the other to Loki who took it wordlessly and pulled it over his head. He said nothing and turned to the bed, ripping down the covers and sheets, throwing them to Thor and rummaging through the wardrobe until he was holding two spare blankets.

Thor was sweating.

The noise was getting worse and he could see tendrils of smoke crawling along the floor out on the hallway. The fire was spreading, fast and while his mind was blank of any ideas, Loki seemed to have gone mad.

"Thor," Loki said, loudly. "We're going to take these upstairs to the old bedrooms and set them on fire. We should burn everything that can be left from Adrian's and William's things. Here, you take that load, I will keep this."

Thor gaped at him.

"Stay close," Loki added, in a quieter, somehow pointed tone. A light bulb went off in Thor's head and he nodded.

Loki stepped out to the hallway. It was already foggy with smoke and there was a distinct orange glow coming from the stairs. Loki made three measured steps, his head straight and held up high. Thor was half a step behind him; plastered so close he risked kicking his heels. He was perfectly focused on every movement Loki made. If he understood this right, he would need to react in less than a second.

And that's just what happened – for reasons Thor couldn't guess yet, Loki barged into one of the rooms they were passing, opening the door before the ghost had a chance to seal it closed. Up to the last moment, he gave nothing away, didn't look where he was going, didn't slow down. And it worked. Thor was ready and followed.

He got a quick glimpse of the room they were in. It was mostly empty, filled only with two beds stripped of any mattresses or bedding and couple of closets, stacked to one side. None of that was really important. He grasped the full extent of Loki's plan as soon as he looked forward. There was a glass door leading to a balcony.

"The sheets and quick!" Loki hissed, shaking out his handful of blankets, throwing them over his head and wrapping himself up. Thor did the same and as a last resort, he tried opening the balcony door by hand first, but it was too late. There was the tell-tale pressure in his temples. Adrian has caught up to them. Taking a deep breath, he took four steps back, tightened his blankets about him and sprinted towards the glass doors, ducking his head and putting a shoulder forward.

It hurt.

Then he was on fire.

And something crashed into him, hard.

They rolled around on the stone balcony floor, shedding their smouldering blankets. The entire room was on fire and the flames licked through the shattered glass, reaching for them. Thor untangled himself at last and pulled Loki up as well.

He didn't check the height first. There was no point. He hopped onto the old, carved stone railing and swung his legs over, pleased to find a bit of an over-hang at the level of the balcony floor and lowered himself as much as possible, all the while keeping an eye on Loki to see him repeat his motions. Behind them, the inferno raged. Everything around was illuminated in faint orange and red glow.

He jumped.

There was grass under his palms and he breathed out in relief, before gasping as pain bloomed in his ankle and both of his knees. A thud and a soft cry next to him made him fight it.

"Good?"

"Alive."

They crawled away. There was no other way to put it. Thor was not eager to start cataloguing his injuries, but there were quite a lot of them and they began making themselves known to him whether he wanted or not as his adrenaline levels dropped.

At a snail pace, staggering and dragging themselves on all fours, they made their way as far from the house as possible. They had jumped somewhere into the garden (Thor could tell because the grass was short and tidy and they passed the pond) and didn't stop until they were far on a hill, surrounded by a rather thick growth of trees. Thor vaguely remembered their trip to the lake as they had gone almost the same way then. It was exactly in the opposite direction from the main road, but they were too desperate to care.

It didn't matter anyway. Thor felt... free. Relieved. He didn't sense anything odd.

He sagged onto the soft ground and leaned against the nearest tree trunk. Loki did the same not far from him.

His ankle was throbbing in pain and his knees were aching from the impact. On top of that, he was slowly discovering small cuts and burns all over his skin, most noticeably a larger burn on the side on his neck and a cut on his forearm and on the side of his palm. He sat unmoving for a while, eyes closed, listening to his heartbeat slowing down and slowly letting himself feel all the aches. His vision was still pulsing beyond the closed lids and his lungs were hungry for oxygen.

When his body settled, he let himself open his eyes and look back towards the Cottage. It was burning whole and his throat closed up and he looked over to Loki before he could stop himself. The whole building, so vast and old was slowly but surely consumed by flames. Thor remembered very well what Loki had said. It was his _home_. And now it was gone, devoured by a restless heart. They were too far to really feel the heat, but Thor could imagine it easily and he could smell the suffocating scent of smoke.

"I'm sorry," he said hopelessly.

Loki was propped against a trunk, curled on himself and staring at the fire. The flames shone so brightly they were reflected in his eyes.

"Why?" he breathed. "Why did this... why did he..."

* * *

><p><em>A figure glided silently through the burning halls, never stopping, frantic and without a purpose. The house was screaming and screeching, the walls, all old wood and stone fighting their demise. No living being was there anymore, all having fled the menace that had tortured them. The figure was moving quickly, harshly, full of desire and desperation. Every memory it ever held was bursting from its heart, tormenting its very existence.<em>

_It had once almost tasted peace, after centuries of grief and anguish. But then... then it was disturbed. It could not even tell _why, _merely that after decades of calm, it was rocked and shaken by laughter and camaraderie and a bond that encompassed bodies and minds alike. It grew jealous, it grew restless. The peace that had seemed so close was suddenly as distant as ever. And so it thrashed and cried out, trying to rid itself of those who dared mock it and disturb it with their love and closeness and care. And now it was all gone, shattered to pieces, burning in flames that reached all the way to sky._

_It could not endure any longer. It__s__ ties were severed and it was sent on its way, whether it was in peace or not. It was time._

* * *

><p>Thor crawled over to Loki, checking on him in the faint light of the burning house. There was blood on his jacket, but it wasn't clear where it came from. There was a burn high on his forehead and his hair might have been singed a little.<p>

He sat down in front of Loki's tense form, arranging his legs so that his ankle didn't hurt quite as much and took Loki's freezing hands in his own.

"Hey," he murmured. "You with me?"

Loki dallied for a moment and then squeezed Thor's fingers back in a reassuring gesture.

"Yeah. Fine."

"I think it's gone," Thor relied his gut feeling to Loki. "It can't do anything now. We got away."

"Yeah, I know, I know..."

"Are you hurt?" he asked, eyes roaming all over Loki.

"I don't know. Yeah-"

Thor kept his mouth shut then. It was not like they could do anything about their injuries. They were completely stripped. Fish out of water. Thor wasn't even sure if his wallet was in the pocket of his trousers or not. He knew he should come up with a plan, get them moving, figure out what to do. But he was tired and his mind was drifting.

He held on to Loki's hands and turned back to the burning building.

"Thor?" Loki mumbled and he turned to him, unsettled by the way Loki slurred his words. "You know... you are a little crazy... but also pretty cool."

Thor choked out a laugh. "Let's not even get started. I have a lot to say about you."

"I bet," Loki chuckled and closed his eyes, resting his head against the tree. "We should probably think about a cover story, but my mind isn't really working right now."

Thor hadn't thought about this before, but an answer came easily to him. "We can't mention the ghost. They would lock us up in a padded room. Not the way I envisioned spending my summer."

"I know... let's just... say something about a faulty stove... I don't know. But Thor-" Loki seemed to fighting exhaustion really hard. "Let's talk later, okay? No matter what happens. Let's talk."

"About?" Thor prompted, his mind a bit hazy.

"Us. Our... you know... kissing and other... activities."

"Oh," Thor bit his lip. "I like you."

"And I you. That's why we should talk. But later."


	7. Epilogue

It was a 30 hour journey across the world. They were exhausted and deeply upset – frightened for their sons, worried about the circumstances of the fire and just a little bit angry that it had happened in the first place.

They stride in quick steps that balance on the edge of running once the receptionist gives them the number of Thor's room.

"What about Loki Laufeyson?"

"He's already been discharged."

That worries them even more. There is a rise in Laufey's pulse when she thinks about her employees – she was of course deeply sorry to hear about Julia's condition and was ready to support her financially, but she cannot overlook the decision Molly and Stuart made. The boys should not have been left alone. And now they don't even know where Loki is.

(She also means to unleash hell on the local emergency services. The morning before the fire started, there was a 999 call from the house, but somehow, somewhere it got scrambled and the ambulance was never dispatched. They are lucky that the Thompsons saw the fire later that night and _their _call went through.)

Her fear was unfounded, she can see as much the second they open the door to the hospital room.

Thor is dozing in bed, one leg propped up, an oxygen mask lying unused on the night stand.

Loki is there as well, sitting in a chair that has been dragged as close to the bed as possible and he is sleeping on bent arms, head resting by Thor's waist.

Thor wakes when they enter, cracking an eye open and giving them a tired smile.

"Hey," he croaks. The sounds wake Loki and she can see his dark head rising, turning to Thor attentively.

"You okay?" he asks, not noticing them yet. His fingers circle Thor's wrist gently. Thor just nods towards them and Loki turns, a relieved smile appearing on his face as well.

It's odd to see them like this. They are both equally stubborn, but otherwise so different. She and Odin spent long hours talking about them, both originally unsure about letting their progeny butt heads unsupervised.

Well.

A house was burnt down.

But strong bonds were forged.

* * *

><p>"Okay," Thor huffs, straightening up and wiping his face off with a sleeve. "I think that's the last one."<p>

Loki disposes of his own box and nods.

They look at each other expectantly for a moment.

"So... I guess you would like a tour."

"Of the whole three rooms? I think I will manage."

Thor laughs, seeing the glint in Loki's eye that belies his bored tone.

"Technically, it's more like... four and a half, but suit yourself."

Loki walks over to Thor, wrapping his arms loosely around his waist and blinks up at him with a flirtatious smile that is only half mocking.

"One thing I want to know... your bedroom..." A dramatic pause. "Does it have blinds and can the windows keep traffic noise out?"

Thor splutters, feigning hurt.

Eventually Loki gets to the see the rest of Thor's London apartment, his new home. It is different. In fact, it couldn't be _more _different from what he is used to.

But as Thor puts his phone down, having just ordered ridiculous amount of take-out and pulls Loki with him onto the couch, turning on the TV and all the while talking about what they should do the next day, where to go, what to see, he finds he doesn't mind.

He snuggles to Thor's side, letting his mind drift. Then his dropping eyelids snap open.

"Did you hear that?"

"What?" Thor asks, eyes wide. Loki loses it then, doubling over in laughter.

"Oh my god, you should have seen your face."

"Very funny. _Hilarious,_" Thor grumbles, relieved. "I will get back at you for that."

Loki just shrugs innocently and climbs into Thor's lap.

"You should let me try and apologize first."

"Mhmm," Thor hums in agreement against Loki's lips and they slide down to lie on their sides, limbs entangled on the couch.

_Yes, I definitely think I will manage, _Loki thinks.

* * *

><p>Adrian Affton<p>

* 1731 ✝ 1749

William Affton

* 1722 ✝ 1745

* * *

><p>AN. And that's it! Hope you enjoyed, if so, let me know :)


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